


Français Between Us

by AdriftInWriting



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Assault, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/F, I'll try to be reasonable about a T/S Relationship, Teacher-Student Relationship, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-17 02:43:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11266284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdriftInWriting/pseuds/AdriftInWriting
Summary: 19-year-old Lena Oxton is an exchange student working on international studies in Paris, France. When she first meets her newest French professor, things are...less than satisfactory. University AU.





	1. Prologue - The Day I Fell For My Professor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena discovers that this is going to be one hell of a long semester.

Lena had unpacked her suitcase, exhaling and stretching herself out after a long day of traveling. Only recently did she agree to take this exchange program to go to a nice University in France. After all, how many 19 year olds were allowed to do this?

Today was the official moving day, actually. For an exchange student with four years of French under her belt, getting around wasn’t so terrible. Albeit, there was vast judgement of Parisians thinking she was a tourist. Nobody came here in Paris to learn shit, they’re always here to look at the Notre Dame, the Louvre, or the Eiffel Tower, then piss off the local population. Worst case, they attempted to take advantage of the local women.

A couple days from now, Lena would have to figure out where her classes would be. Of all of these, she looked forward to learning French...or at least, whatever more she could. Being in the heart of France would really help with the immersion, and this was a whole year’s worth of international studies she’d be partaking in. She just wished Hana or Lúcio could’ve come along with her, just so they were dorm-mates. That way, she wasn’t so alone and completely out of her depth in a foreign land.

* * *

 Those ‘couple of days’ came faster than intended. Lena had lost track of time trying to figure out how to settle in. Some people she stumbled across happened to be nice and knew English, but most...not so much.

Classes seemed to be doing alright. It was vastly different with the French compared to the British, though a lot of people seemed to have noticed Lena’s distinct cockney accent flowing in with her French. That, however, seemed to garner a bit of unwanted attention in both ways, and she ignored all of them for the most part.

Then came the last class of the day: French class. Of all the classes Lena had gotten to get a feel for, this was the one she was looking most forward to.

She took a seat in the front, rather in the back. Her eyesight wasn’t all that great, but it wasn’t too bad she needed glasses. A few of Lena’s classmates were fitted into this schedule as well, though none of them seemed interested in sitting next to her. In fact, nobody she knew wanted to sit next to her. It was all just the smart kids or those who wanted to be front-and-centered.

When it was time for class to start, the professor had yet to make their appearance. ‘She must be late’ seemed to be a recurring whisper amongst the students, though it was perfectly fine for Lena. She was missing her friends already; even more so than when the day began and by now, they’d probably be out of class. She reached into her jacket pocket, checked on her phone for messages, and spent the next few minutes simply responding back to messages.

Though oblivious, the professor walked in with a distinct ‘clack-clack’ of her heels marching its way down to her desk space. Of all the people oblivious to the situation - and just as class was about to start - Lena was still busy pressing away on her phone.

“Good afternoon. My name is Amélie Lacroix.”

Lena froze up. She looked up from her phone, but her instructor had already turned around to write her name on the board. Once Miss Lacroix was finished, she shifted herself back to the class.

Wearing a black button-up shirt and a modestly lengthy skirt with slicked back hair fashioned into a ponytail and wearing half-framed glasses, Amélie oozed professionalism all over. Though the professor continued onto her schedule as planned, she did not seem to pay attention to Lena, who was, at the moment, having a bit of a lesbian panic to herself.

Lena had softly bit her lower lip and scooted just a smidge away from her initial seating position. She felt hot and bothered all of a sudden, as if the room had become burning with the presence of a shining star.

“I will be guiding you all through a course in French for the semester. But first, attendance.”

_Fuck._

Fucking _fuck_. Lena curled her toes just hearing Amélie’s accent. In all the years she did French, nothing came even remotely close to what her ears deemed as a sweet, lulling voice. Four years in French, and for this? Nobody told her that her professor would potentially be the end for her!

After a swift moment of shuffling papers around, names were called, and Lena continued to sit there completely dumbstruck. Something fuzzy fluttered in her stomach, distracting her.

“Lena...Oxton?”

Upon hearing her name, Lena said nothing, for she was lost in the moment.

“Lena Oxton?” Amélie repeated again. “Is Miss Oxton here?”

“...Lena!” Lena had called out to herself, before shaking her head. “Uh, I mean...here! Yes, I’m here!”

The whole class in return looked at her in confusion. She felt all the pairs of eyes staring at her. She felt humiliated as her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red.

Amélie lowered her glasses and glanced over at the Brit briefly. She hovered her index finger over to her memo next to her, mouthing words to remember something.

Once the professor found her spot, she gazed back at Lena with a small smile.

“Ah. The exchange student from London. Welcome to France.”

That was it. Lena’s heart melted over the sight of her own professor smiling amiably at her. She was too embarrassed to say anything, only turn away before her entire physical being turned into a puddled mess. When Amélie continued on to finish off the rest of her attendance sheet, only then did Lena return back to normal momentarily.

“Oh, god _damn_ ,” Lena muttered under her breath in English, “I didn’t sign up for this level of gay...”


	2. Our First Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena is near flunking the class and Professor Lacroix finds out the truth.

Lena stared at her bedroom ceiling, having been unable to sleep for the past few hours. She tossed and turned, feeling agitated she couldn’t drift off to bed. Being an hour ahead compared to London, that didn’t throw her off all too much; what did throw her off was how a large disparity of her attention right now seemed to be just on her professor. Lena had learned that Amélie was 26, and a graduate student as part of a unique initiative within the university to make other up-and-coming students comfortable. Not only that, but she was also a professor for teaching the basics of musical instruments to other students, particularly the piano and the violin. That, and she grew up in Annecy, wanting to become a ballet dancer. As life would have it though, careers change. Nowadays, ballet dancing was more of a personal hobby rather than a dedicated life choice.

As a month passed and the students began to settle into their new class times, Lena couldn’t help herself. Literally, she could _not_ help herself. By definition, she was at least a decent student in French - superb in every department, actually. Her grammar was always correct and her pronunciation was something above the cream of the crop, yet…

In Professor Lacroix’s classroom, this was where she could barely pay any attention. Each and every single time Lena tried focusing, she could only end up struggling to keep up with the class. She only had herself to blame for it, what with being distracted by Professor Lacroix’s alluring French accent and how beautiful she was. It didn't matter how many years she had been taught, all of that amounted to nothing when she'd just end up thinking about Miss Lacroix and nothing more.

Though other students would complain Professor Lacroix's curriculum was hard - perhaps too hard and strict on them - this was not why Lena had an increasingly low grade of just 12 points in the class. Most of the time, Amélie could see the potential that her fellow exchange student had within her, but she’d often get a bit irritated that even the simplest of statements was being fucked up without any reason.

If she kept this up, she was bound to flunk the class, and that would piss off her professor more than anything.

That wasn’t what she wanted.

* * *

 A couple of minutes before the bell would ring to dismiss the students, Amélie began to remind others about their homework for the night and to study hard for the upcoming quiz. She expects many to succeed, and if they didn’t, it’d certainly tarnish her reputation.

When the bell did ring, all of the students picked up their tablets, backpacks, and other school utensils before calmly exiting the room in a single-file manner. As Lena herself packed up, her professor stopped her.

“Miss Oxton?” Amélie chimed in, speaking in a gentle voice. “Would you please stay after class?”

In that moment, Lena tensed herself up. She gulped nervously, knowing that she was in trouble. She didn’t mind so much being in trouble per se, but rather having to face someone she really did not want to tick off. Forcibly, Lena nodded in silence and finished up stuffing her pencils into a pencil bag, and her phone into her pocket.

Once the class was empty, Professor Lacroix lugged up her purse and wiped off today’s lessons from the whiteboard. Lena acted as calm as she could, since this was the first time she was ever called up for anything.

Exhaling and putting down her eraser, Professor Lacroix clasped her hands together as she beckoned Lena to come with her.

“Where to?” Lena had asked.

“My office. Next class is coming and I cannot hold you for more than I want to there.”

“Oh…”

Nervously, Lena swallowed. She wasn’t prepared for what was coming and what would be worse: Being alone (together) with somebody she saw as really attractive, or getting yelled at by somebody whom she knows is super attractive.

* * *

 “So, Miss Oxton...do you know why you are here?” Amélie spoke softly, setting her purse down as she entwined her fingers together and sat down.

Lena simply shook her head and actively tried not making eye contact, lest she blush or embarrass herself.

Cocking her head to the side, Amélie hummed at how terribly bad Lena was at trying to hide or avoid the subject.

“Well, I may be strict, but I’m not here to yell at you. Rather…” The professor paused, mumbling indistinctly about some files, until she found the correct manila folder. “More about your scores.”

In the folder, there were some legally obtained manuscripts provided by the University pertaining to Lena herself, and her performance back in London when she studied there.

Clearing her throat, Professor Lacroix raised her glasses up to her bridge and glanced over to Lena, changing up her dialect from French to English.

“Are you okay with me talking to you in English rather than French?”

Alarmed, Lena turned her head over to her professor and felt really hot again.

_Act calm,_ Lena told herself. _She’s just your professor. Your really fucking hot professor you can’t help but fall head over heels for._

“U-um...y-yeah sure. Yes. Most definitely. Please. I didn’t -” Lena found herself stuttering and yammering about, tripping over her own words. She had a second thought in her head, wondering whether or not Miss Lacroix had overheard her during the first day of class. If she did, well, she’d have some explaining to do...

“Yes, I do speak English. Why do you think they assigned you to me?”

Amélie slid her hands over to the most recent manuscript before skimming over it. “Anyway…” She focused her eyes back on the paper. “According to the previous University you’re attending, you are...brilliant.”

She put the manuscript down, flipping it over for her student to see. Her voice was still ever so soothing at the moment. “Yet over in Paris, France, you are two points away from failing this class. Why is that?’

“Because I’m too bloody gay and I don’t know any better…” Lena mumbled, hoping her professor didn’t hear that.

“You...don’t know what?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Now, you just can’t respond to a question with another question. Answer mine first, and I will answer yours.”

Sighing, Lena lowered her head and bit the inside of her mouth. “It’s...It’s too hard. Like all the kids say. Your class is hard.”

Amélie nodded once, as if she had expected this answer. She’d probably heard it over a billion times already that things were ‘too hard’ or ‘too challenging’.

Her professor’s hum sounded like something of a disappointment, just by how the tone of it was. Lena wished she hadn’t said anything, but then Professor Lacroix forced a laugh.

“I want my students to have a good education. But nobody wants to have one these days. Parisians…” Amélie shook her head at the thought, “they just want things easy. Money, women...knowledge.”

A knock on the door disrupted teacher and student, as a tall man came in with a stack of papers in his hands, and a confident smile on his face.

“Got the papers! What’s this about speaking in English?” The man had said, with the dialect switching back from English to French.

The professor’s expression changed to a more stern one upon seeing this man rudely barge in like that. Regardless, she gestured him to come forth and bring her the papers necessary. When he did, Amélie sighed.

“I asked for these papers to be delivered to me four hours ago.” She muttered softly before glowering at her assistant. He shrugged, which was just another excuse for ‘getting caught up in some things’. It was always Gérard’s reason. Amélie flicked the air to signal Gérard to go away, skimming over the papers momentarily.

He lingered for a moment, scanning over Lena before glancing over to the professor.

“Who’s this? Won’t you introduce me to her?”

“My student. Now go away.”

“But -”

“No buts. Go flirt with the other members of the faculty.”

Grinning, Gérard decided to stay and leaned on Amélie’s desk. “Oh...flirting. So you do notice.”

“For the last time, I’m not going on any more of your coffee ‘dates’ after that garbage you pulled. Never again.”

“Hrm. Maybe I should try something else?” He shrugged and scratched his head.

Irritated, the professor stood up from her desk and forcibly dragged Gérard out by his shirt. She had a strong grip, tugging at him with force. “Out. Now.”

Though he resisted, Amélie’s strength proved too much for him and he was thrown out, with the door slamming into his face on the way out. A click to indicate the door being locked was heard, and a sign that said ‘Please Knock’ was hung over the door window.

Amélie sat back down and sighed deeply. She noticed Gérard’s eyeballs stalking the two again, and she gave him the iberian slap. Moments after, he left. While that fiasco went on, a fringe of the professor’s hair drooped down over her forehead. She seemed oblivious to it, and Lena didn’t seem to mind. In fact, it made her a bit more...sexier, to say the least.

“Who was that?” Lena chimed in, after remaining silent for the entire duration of the meeting, now switching back to English.

“That was Gérard, my ‘assistant’ as assigned by the board of foreign languages.”

“D’you mind if we board that train for a bit?”

“Ah...no. Perhaps next time. Anyhow…” Amélie pursed her lips, trying to recall what they were talking about earlier. Something about Parisians? Ah, whatever the case, she let it go.

But now it was time for her to answer Lena’s question.

“I’m not mad, Miss Oxton.”

Upon hearing those words, Lena felt a huge burden lift off of her shoulders. She was glad - to say the least, anyway - somebody she liked wasn’t mad at her.

“But I am a little concerned that you are _not_ taking this seriously.”

The professor leaned in just a bit closer, raising her glasses up to her nose bridge again. In return, Lena shrunk into her chair.

“I value my students, with you having the most potential I’ve seen. As I’ve said, you’re quite brilliant.” She smiled, then placed the manuscripts back into Lena’s confidential manila folders. Lena had blushed unintentionally, though her professor didn’t seem to notice.

Suddenly, that smile faded away into something wistful. “I would be heavily disappointed if I must drop you from this course. So please,” Professor Lacroix stood up to put back the folders back into her filing cabinet. “Focus. Be a good student, okay?”

Swallowing again, Lena nodded. “O-okay Miss Lacroix! I’ll try!”

Pausing momentarily, Amélie glanced back over to Lena and gave a warm smile. “Please, call me Amélie. Or Amy, or Melly, whichever you prefer!”

Nodding once again, Lena shifted her body to sit more comfortably in her chair and actively tried not to directly look at her professor lest she melt into a puddle again.

Amélie. It had a nice ring to it in comparison to Amy or Melly, though the former and latter were easy as hell to just say. Maybe just Amélie the first few days before shifting into either or.

The door clicked again, this time with Miss Lacroix removing the sign and unlocking the door. “You are free to go, Miss Oxton. I believe I kept you here long enough.”

Lena grabbed her backpack and proceeded to head for the door as Amélie opened it up. A thought suddenly came into her mind, and just before she exited, Lena mustered up all the courage she could.

“Could you tutor me?”

All Amélie did was stare, and nod once. “Of course! Just stop by during office hours or schedule an appointment with me, be it e-mail or after class.”

With one last nod, Lena exited out of the room with Amélie waving her goodbye, and proceeded to close her door.

She sighed, licking her lips and fixing her otherwise messy hair. Professor Lacroix couldn’t get out of here until another hour. Those papers needed to be properly filed and graded accordingly by someone, after all. She didn’t have a student teacher, or some other helpers. She never did like doing that, and even then, they’d probably try to cut corners.

* * *

 Just before going to her desk, Amélie spotted a phone with headphones wrapped around it, and a few messages popping up. Undoubtedly it was Lena’s considering that her own phone was in her purse, and she never used headphones during work hours.

Swiftly, Amélie picked up the phone and opened up her door again. She wasn’t quite sure where Lena went, and she must’ve forgotten. No way Amélie would find her by now.  
Thus, the phone was in her possession just for today.

But she wondered if Lena kept any records of her address anywhere so she could formally return it by the end of tonight, but that might be digging too deep…

Not like that’s going to stop Amélie anyway. She closed her office doors again, plopping back into her chair and unraveled the pair of headphones, ensuring that they didn’t dangle aimlessly. The first message she read came from what looked like a group conversation. They were all appropriately colored too; one had a pink bubble, another green, and the last one was golden yellow. Assuming from past conversations, Lena was the cyan bubble.

Perhaps a simple conversation could’ve held some clues. Though, Amélie would probably have to sift through a lot of messages dating back a month, maybe even more. Accursed phones could never keep history with a search option, and even today it still couldn’t.

So, she started flicking her finger up into the pool of text messages. Random assortments of ‘How are you’s were thrown around, mixed in with other student life problems or average amounts of freedom. No laundry day today, accidentally leaving your wallet at home, one extra-large wall of text about a medical analysis that a certain ‘Angie’ had sent over…

None of this really went anywhere, but in the back of Amélie’s mind, she couldn’t stop. She knew better, yet this was something she really needed to get to the bottom of. It’d be preferable if she knew where Lena lived in the event she did this again, or perhaps consider private lessons. Amélie kept flicking her thumb up the phone, skimming through rather pointless texts that wouldn’t lead her anywhere.

Until she happened to stop at a picture of herself, taken from the perspective of where Lena had been sitting for the past month. It was the first day of class from the look of the clothes she wore that day. Tilting her head, Amélie flipped back to this conversation. Only now did Amélie really pay attention to the chat bubble names. Appropriately, they were named Lou, Angie, and Hana.

* * *

  **Lena:** listen

**Lena:** _(Picture of Amélie)_

**Lena:** gotta see to believe

**Lena:** send h e l p

**Hana:** :O :O :O

**Hana:** my dude. my man. u struck gold.

**Lou:** don’t tell me you’re gay for her

**Lena:** SHUT THE FUCK

**Lou:** oh so you are

**Lou:** huh.

**Angie:** I will admit she’s pretty but uh.

**Angie:** Is she not your instructor?

**Lena:** Yes

**Lena:** It’s real hard to focus in her class when she’s speaking

**Lena:** Idk what to say

**Lena:** Her accent gets me off

**Lena:** She’s fuckin hella and I’m sitting here like

**Lena:** Unf

**Angie:** That’s dangerous, you know. Don’t do it.

**Hana:** aha, u should tell her

**Hana:** send ur love to her

**Lou:** you gotta Lena

**Lena:** Oh god.

**Hana:** SEND IT

**Lena:** pls Hana

**Angie:** I don’t know the rules and regulations of France, but Hana, that’s not something you’d want to be saying. Teacher and student relationships are often shunned.

**Lena:** Wonder if she knows English???

**Hana:** she’s french yea? she prob speaks french only.  
  
**Hana:** maybe ask her to speak french between ur legs ;)

**Angie:** Is that _really_ necessary and appropriate right now, Hana?!

**Lou:** hana no

**Hana:** just saying my dudes. I hear french people like it when u take charge.

**Lena:** YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY SELF-ESTEEM 

**Lena:** BUT I WOULD IF I WASNT IN A GAY PANIC RN 

**Hana:** :3c

* * *

That was enough. Amélie set the phone down, feeling her cheeks burn out of the sheer embarrassment in herself. Setting the phone down, she took a moment to recollect herself. What did she just even read?

Did her student just confess to her friends she had feelings for her? Literally, her _own_ professor of all people? That would explain her difficulties in class, for the most part. It wasn’t because it was hard. Absolutely not. But, rather she can’t even _focus_ on the subject matter at hand. If Amélie didn’t know any better, she’d have to assume Lena focused on her and her seemingly alluring French accent, or her face or whatever, not much about the actual words she spoke in the class.

Now that the professor thought about it, Lena did act incredibly awkward around her. She never really spoke aloud, let alone raise her hand to ask questions. She’d avoid eye-contact if at all possible, and she’d stutter if she was picked on. Hell, it was even noticeable during their conversation face-to-face. She had passed it off as...being shy. But Professor Lacroix figured it out now. And it was more embarrassing just thinking about the fact this is happening.

Amélie forced a laugh out, before it naturally coming out in full force. This was so stupid, yet she could see it. People always did find her attractive, yet...this was the first time another girl liked her in _that_ sort of way. She didn’t know whether or not to take it as a compliment, let alone from her student, for fuck’s sake.

She decided though, not to let it get to her head too much. What was more important wasn’t discovering her student had a huge crush, or ‘gay panic’ on her - but rather get to work on those papers to grade. After that, then she’d probably have a personal chat with Lena.

That is, _assuming_ a personal chat wouldn’t lead down somewhere she didn’t intend to go.


	3. Early Morning Discussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena recovers her phone, and things between teacher-and-student begin taking a different direction.

“ _Aghh_! Where is my phone?!”

Lena had angrily shuffled around her backpack, emptying its contents onto her bed and scrambling to check to see if she had left her phone in here. She did that, over and over again hoping she was perhaps blind.

There was nothing here except a few leftover scraps of paper rolled up into balls, and other dusty junk from leftover snackings. Her phone wasn’t there; Lena felt an unease in her heart that she had lost her phone so early on, and in another foreign country to boot.

After searching her bag for about the tenth time, Lena sat down, now defeated with hopelessness. Without her phone she’d be lost for a little while. Her friends would probably assume she’s been charging it, or at the very least it’s turned off.

But what if somebody were to use it and make malice out of it? That thought preyed within Lena’s mind for a bit, but now wasn’t the time for foolish ideas. Instead, she reorganized her backpack, setting it down elsewhere so the clutter wouldn’t take up her space.

Not much homework assignments tonight, at least. But what good was the free time if there was abso-fuckin’-lutely _nothing_ to do? Even though she’d been here a month, Lena still barely knew the lay of the land. She didn’t even make a single friend yet, since neither of them seem interested in trying to befriend a British lady.

Correction: A British lady who’s fallen behind most of her peers in French.

Lena’s stomach grumbled a little, and she had totally forgotten she hadn’t eaten lunch today due to the fact she spent looking for her damned phone, on top of talking to Professor Lacroix during what was supposed to be a fairly late lunch hour, but it was still lunch…

On the bright side, at least tomorrow was a Friday. On the downside, it’d mean if she couldn’t find it, she’d be stuck without any connection to the outside world aside from a laptop.

And she hated using her shitty laptop.

* * *

 The following morning, Lena had gone back on campus at a reasonably earlier time than she was preferably used to, just to look for her phone. She had decided to retrace her steps backwards, starting with her professor’s office. Unless it was a fever dream, Lena last had possession of her phone in here.

To nobody’s surprise, the office was empty and the door was locked.

Perfect...just _perfect_.

Lena squinted and peeked inside the office, yet there was still no sign of her phone anywhere. Unfortunately for her, there was nothing to be seen aside from empty chairs and a desk that was relatively devoid of papers.

Sighing with disappointment, Lena took some time to reconsider where else it could potentially be. It shouldn’t be anywhere else, because she remembered holding that device in her hand just before leaving French. No way she could’ve dropped it on the way out without hearing a loud thud to accompany it.

“Isn’t it too early to be visiting me _again_ , Miss Oxton?” A familiar voice had rang out in English, shoving Lena back to the realm of reality. She jumped, facing her professor.

With keys in hand, Amélie unlocked the door, though she did not walk in immediately. Instead, she rotated her body over to face her student. “I take it this isn’t going to be about your points again.”

In response, Lena looked down, feeling slightly embarrassed about how she was behaving yesterday. Yet here she was again, avoiding eye contact and blushing furiously whenever her professor scolded her. She didn’t like it, yet at the same time...it seemed to be a fairly effective way to hear that sweet, sweet accent.

It was just as Amélie suspected though; Lena was doing the same thing, and all she could do in return was nod and hum.

“Well, since you’re here,” Professor Lacroix gestured her student to come in. “After you.”

Anxiously, Lena had walked in. All she wanted was to know about her phone’s whereabouts and go about her day, that’s all.

Hopefully she wasn’t gonna fuck this one up as badly.

* * *

Once again, the two had sat at the desk together. It seemed like a repeat of yesterday, albeit the subject was changed now to locating a phone. Without hesitation, Miss Lacroix reached inside her purse, fishing out Lena’s device, headphones and all.

“I believe this belongs to you.” Professor Lacroix said, extending out her hand towards Lena. There was a glimmer in her exchange student’s eyes as the phone was quickly snatched out of Amélie’s hand. “I took the privilege of charging it as well, considering it was low when you left it here. And…”

She paused for a minute. Amélie wasn’t quite positive she wanted to just blurt out ‘I looked at your messages and figured out the reason you’re flunking because you’re gay for me’, or something along those lines. In fact, she wouldn’t know how Lena would react. Would it be out of anger due to an invasion of privacy, or one of sheer humiliation and they would never speak again?

No...that was something she’d rather not do, especially to somebody who only came here for international studies and got much, much more out of the bargain. Truth be told, she wondered if Lena even knew that she knew. Perhaps if there were a way to get it out of her rather than say it outright.

After a couple more moments of silence, Amélie opted to simply clasp her hands together and put that idea behind her mind for now. “Don’t lose it again.”

With a nod, Lena felt relieved she wasn’t hallucinating and that she’d lost it somewhere on this campus. A bright smile unraveled across her face before she pocketed it, and made sure it would stay in her pair of jeans.

Normally, Lena would’ve just jumped ship and moved outside to do her own business now, yet she felt compelled to just sit down and try to chat. That was the least she could do; She could at least try to appease her professor in the event she comes close to upping her own grade, and if that doesn’t work out, at least she made a friend.

Setting her backpack to the seat next to her, Lena tried her very best not to screw up her sentences. She took a deep breath, mustering up that courage she had just before leaving yesterday.

“Can...you...tell me about Gérard now?”

“Tchh…” Amélie chuckled, shaking her head with a slight smile. Now that she was aware of Lena’s truest behaviors, she could at least sate her curiosity. “Ah, fine.”

She took off her glasses and set them neatly on the desk before her, softly sighing and getting comfortable in her chair. “I didn’t ask him to be my assistant. The campus put us both together for a few years and, well...”

Amélie shrugged. “He’s been stuck with me ever since. Seeing how he seems to be attracted to me, he simply asked me on a date. Coffee, of course. I am sure you overheard our...petty argument.”

There was another pause while Amélie recollected the first time she and Gérard went on an informal date. Outside of, perhaps, a few guidances on where she was supposed to go, there wasn’t much physical contact. She never liked to be touched without permission, and even her assistant knew as much.

“How was it, even?” Lena softly muttered, wondering if her professor’s feelings were for someone else.

Professor Lacroix just scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Not all that bad. He had nothing of interest to say, other than trying to flatter me. Can’t say I was impressed.”

For a moment, Lena’s sense of relief came back, though that sense became more of concern after Amélie remained awfully silent, and it was silent enough to hear somebody sneeze just across the hallway.

Another scoff and another head shake was all Amélie gave before continuing on.

“Do you remember what I said about Parisians?”

Lena scratched her head, trying to recall that moment back. Was it something about them all being the same, or all of them being vastly unique? She couldn’t recall, but her best guess was that it was the former.

“Something about them being all the same, yeah?”

A simple confirmation in the form of a nod was given, and Amélie softly grinned. “So you do listen to me.”

She stood up, calmly walking over to the window to the left of where she was. She glared outside, eyeballing passerby students and the occasional teacher, or service dog coming in and out of the building.

“All the same…” Professor Lacroix had muttered.

“I take it Gérard is from Paris?” Lena adjusted her body so she was still facing her professor.

“Actually, Miss Oxton, it’s worse.”

“Just call me Lena! No need for formalities!”

The professor glanced over at her student, unsure of whether or not this was an intended notion Lena was throwing at her. Nevertheless, she nodded. “Okay, Lena.”

That was enough sightseeing for now. Considering this _might_ be a longer story than she’d intended, she prepared her office sign and put it up once again. Then, she locked the door so that nobody would bother them.

If things were to be more informal from this point, Amélie saw no reason to be professional about it, frankly.

“He’s not even a true Parisian. Just acts like it.”

“Is he not from here, then?”

“Montreal. Born and raised in Montreal, moved to Paris.”

Lena snickered at that idea. “You’re joking.”

“Nope.” Professor Lacroix rolled her eyes again and shrugged. “He’ll deny it all he wants, but the man’s French-Canadian. Bastard!”

Lena was taken aback for a moment. Did her professor just swear in front of her? Well, make a vulgar remark at the very least?

It felt awkward. Really, _really_ awkward. Maybe it was just her getting fresh out of high school where being civil and formal was kind of, y’know, a requirement. But here at a University, things seemed...loose.

But Miss Lacroix didn’t seem to stop there. “One of the little reasons I prefer not to go on his outings. He lies frequently and tries far too hard.” She exhaled, rapidly shaking her head side-to-side to try to clear her mind, then focused back on Lena.

"If I could, I'd probably...strangle him in his sleep. That'll teach him to keep his mouth shut."

That freaked out Lena a little bit, and she scooted back in her chair, though her fear gradually reduced itself when Amélie raised her hand, knowing damned well what she said was wrong. 

"Forgive me. I didn't quite mean that. A slip of the tongue, if you will. He's just...annoying.” She raised her hands up, then let them flop back on her lap. “For all his attempts, he is still a good man. He knows his boundaries...sometimes.”

Not like that mattered to her now, anyway. Professor Lacroix shrugged again, muttering something about that ‘just being the life of a woman’, and gazed back at Lena.

“Perhaps in another life, or another world."

Amélie rolled her eyes and snickered at that idea. It was stupid, what she had said. But it didn't matter now, considering Lena seemed to have calmed down.

"Anyhow, any more questions?”

She thought for a brief moment, but Lena hadn’t any other questions. She was still a little bit shaken from her professor’s remark about killing her own assistant, but really, Lena didn’t know where to go from here. Though it didn’t look like it, she had blanked out real quick, focusing only on her professor’s...face.

If there was nothing else, then perhaps this was the end of their morning meet. With pursed lips and a tilted head, Amélie took a deep breath and hummed. “If nothing else, then you’re free to go. Remove the sign and leave the door open on your way out.”

That was when Lena snapped herself back into reality and blinked a few times. Indeed, she had nothing else right now. Just before leaving, she made sure her phone was still on her and double-checked her backpack had everything for the day.

Yup. Everything’s there.

As she began standing up and as she marched towards her usual hang-out spot, that feeling in the back of Amélie’s head clawed its way back. Now or never, she’d have to at least say _something_.

“Lena?”

Her student stopped, just mid-way through the exit outwards. Her hand was on the door, but her attention refocused itself back towards Professor Lacroix. She didn’t say anything else, simply...listening.

“Your friend. The one working on graduating on becoming a doctor?”

Lena nervously swallowed, hoping this wasn’t what she suspected it to be. “...What about her?”

“I’d listen to her, if I were you.”

Nope. Nope-ity nope nope. Lena hurriedly exited out of her professor’s office, feeling some beads of sweat and heavy amounts of embarrassment run through her body. She felt incredibly hot, and she didn’t dare look back.

Her professor knew. She knew everything. Because, if anything, there was no escape from this. It’d be looming over Lena’s head this entire semester if she left it be. If it’s what Lena thought this was about, then she’d need to come back later today.

...Shit.


	4. The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena learns the hard way that things aren't meant to be...or is it?

**Lena:** SHE KNOWS

 **Lena:** FGKFDJFRSD

 **Hana:** u told her?

 **Hana:** gj my dude. now u just gotta wait. she’ll be eating out ur hand soon.

 **Hana:** or eating you out. ;)

 **Lena:** NO SHE JUST FIGURED IT OUT

 **Lena:** NOT THE TIME FOR THAT HANA!!!

 **Angie:** ...Oh dear.

 **Lena:** SHE MENTIONED YOU SPECIFICALLY ANGIE

 **Lena:** YOU AINT GETTING AWAY FROM THIS SHIT NOW

 **Angie:** And how did I even get hooked in this charade?

 **Angie:** You weren’t even here in the chat yesterday. Past the morning, you sent nothing.

 **Angie:** In fact, outside of that picture I don’t even know your professor.  
  
**Angie:** And stop typing in caps. Calm down.

 **Lena:** Fine.

 **Lena:** But what the fuck do I do?!

 **Lena:** My phone was in her office when I went home

 **Lena:** And next thing I know she suddenly knows

 **Lena:** She just _knows_!!

 **Lena:** Where’s Lucio when you need him

 **Hana:** at a music thing he mentioned

 **Hana:** but u werent in the chat yesterday to know so.

 **Lena:** Oh.

 **Angie:** Lena, you’re overthinking it.

 **Angie:** As far as I’m concerned she had no business looking through phone messages.  
  
**Angie:** Also, you don’t seem to be phased or deterred. So...

 **Angie:** If you plan on talking to her about it, put on a brave face.

 **Angie:** And if you are for certain you want this to be…a real thing?

 **Angie:** Do it naturally. Get to know her.

 **Angie:** Pretend she is someone you’re interested in as a friend, then move forward from there.

 **Hana:** ^^^

 **Hana:** all this and then some.

 **Hana:** 110% serious? ur overthinking. if its bugging u that much, just ask  
  
**Hana:** like, ask why tf she was peeking through someone elses phone.

 **Hana:** no harm in asking ur professor a simple question right?

 **Lena:** I guess  
  
**Lena:** I’ll talk later I should really get to class

* * *

For what it was worth, Lena wouldn’t have to face Amélie today at all if she chose not to. She didn’t have French today, but...she _really_ needed to confront her professor about it.

Whether or not it was over the fact she somehow knew about Angela, or the fact she seemed rather passive and casual about their last informal meeting, something just compelled Lena to confront her professor about it.

And so, she carried some thoughts in her head as the last few minutes of her Mathematics class concluded. She didn’t know if Professor Lacroix would still be in her office, let alone the building be active past this hour. It was a Friday after all, and this week had already been long enough for some.

Nevertheless, as soon as she was able, Lena stuffed her pencils and notebooks into her backpack and made a mad dash for it towards the French department. She brushed past students on their way to the parking lot, but she had no time to apologize.

By the time she had reached the hall where Professor Lacroix’s office was, Amélie herself was seen just about to close the door, after grabbing a refilled bottle of water from the nearby vending machine. A tired expression was rather evident judging by how unrefined her appearance seemed; a bit of her makeup seemed to be smudged in random spots, and her ponytail drooped much lower than normally. Overall, even without the makeup, Professor Lacroix just looked done for the week.

While Lena was observing her professor, Amélie’s eyes made their way to her and she cocked her head to the side.

“ _Again?_ This is the third time this week, Lena.”

Sighing disappointedly, her professor was about to go on and lecture Lena on perhaps learning how to make an appointment, rather than walk in clumsily. However, she didn’t get any time to even get those words out before her student stopped her.

“No. I just...wanted to ask you some things.” Lena had said reluctantly, casually brushing her hair from the front to the back. There was a tonal shift in her voice, which had made Professor Lacroix think twice about this...third meeting.

Still though, she wanted to help Lena for all the trouble she was going through. If she had to lie about it, then that’d be fine by her. Even if she knew the truth, that’d still be fine.

But a change of scenery would definitely be nice. It’s a goddamned Friday after all, and Amélie would prefer not to remain a second in her office a minute longer. Since it was nice to drop her sense of professionalism around Lena - and she barely did this for most instances - some nice, fresh air would be good.

“D’you wanna go somewhere?”

As if Lena had been reading her mind, she seemed to have taken the words right out of her brain. In that moment, the professor blanked out for a second. She wasn’t quite sure if she was thinking out loud, or she was just too fucking  _tired_ and wanted to go home already.

At least this was a chance to get the hell out and go somewhere. Subconsciously, she simply nodded and didn’t even think about anything but going somewhere.

“Sure. Let me just…”

Focus. She needed to focus. Amélie raised her index finger up to gesture Lena should wait outside. Perhaps some papers needing to be graded in the other class period could wait for later. After all, this _was_ a university...even though Amélie liked being on time and keeping a tight-knit schedule.

As the professor grabbed her purse and keys, she exited out and had locked the door safely for the weekend. Of course, Lena had already cracked open the door out and hadn’t lost that sense of confidence that she had somehow gained, though Amélie was certain she’d crack eventually.

Nevertheless, she went outside and took a breath of fresh air, letting the gentle breeze outside brush against her face. The weather wasn’t too warm, but it wasn’t too cold either, just the way she liked it. At this rate, the actual autumn breeze and weather might come earlier than anticipated.

“What did you want to talk about?” Amélie had wondered, though not glaring directly at Lena.

Her student really wanted to say ‘You looked at my bloody phone why would you invade my space’, but that was rude - and possibly - predictable. So maybe, she’d try and act like this wasn’t anything even though she ran out like a damned idiot earlier. Either that, or be delicate about it. Play the game, but don’t lose it.

Licking her lips, she put on a little brave smile. “How’d you know about my friend?”

Oh, of course this was their topic. Just by her expression alone, Professor Lacroix already had an answer prepared.

“Lock-screen notification. It’s impossible not to notice when I was charging your phone with mine overnight.” She paused, and then shrugged while walking. “Rapid-fire arguments from one friend to another.”

Well, Angie and Hana were known for getting into some arguments over dumb things from time to time, but they’d make it up later. Suddenly, Lena felt like she might’ve overreacted earlier, yet…

It still doesn’t explain why Amélie suggested Lena should listen to Angela. Whether it be she was smart or it was just an educated guess, Lena didn’t know.

A nearby bench in a park on campus seemed to be Lena’s destination in mind. It wasn’t too crowded, and it seemed a rather appropriate spot to just have a chat. She sat down, and a confused Professor Lacroix had been gazing at her.

“A park?”

“Yeah. Don’t like parks?”

Amélie opted to just stand there for a brief moment, preferring not to answer that question. Instead, she just sat down and placed her purse to the left of her. It was outside, at least. But in her mind, the nearby park wasn’t somewhere she’d like to be. After all, it was only some few hundred feet away from her own department building.

Things went quiet from thereon. In Lena’s head, the bugging question of whether or not her phone was invaded lingered, and in Amélie’s mind she really, really did not want to talk about what she read. It still embarrassed the both of them so that they had found out in the most inconvenient of ways.

But, that was fate. And if Lena were to follow through on Angela’s words, she’d have to put on a braver face than the one she already had.

With a deep breath, she turned to face her professor, and softly prodded her on the shoulder. In response, Amélie turned her attention over to her student, not saying a word.

 _Now or never, Oxton,_ her mind had told her.

“...Did you look in my phone when you had it?”

A small smile was on the professor’s facial expression now. No point in lying to her any further or beating around the bush. She nodded once, and that was the answer - and way - she chose to portray it as.

By then, Lena covered her mouth and turned away. Muffled ‘Oh gods’ were heard, and a madly blushing student had sat next to Amélie. Her small smile grew into a bigger one as she was trying to hold back a few laughs, even though this was a serious matter.

After Lena had finished melting yet again, she clenched her fists trying to control herself. “ _Why?_ Why would you do this?”

By then, Amélie couldn’t hold back laughing anymore and shook her head. “I was looking to see if I could find your address somewhere.” She shrugged ever so casually at the dumbstruck Lena. “I give a damn about my students. Is that too much?”

In response, Lena found herself stammering over her own words again. “B-but that’s literally-- I mean -- no -- you c-can’t just --”

So much for being brave. There she goes again, being a gay mess, stuttering and tripping over her words like an idiot. Something about it seemed to make Amélie cheer up and tend to forget she was tired, though it was probably how stupid or hilarious - or both - this situation was. While her student was stammering, she simply pressed her index finger up on Lena’s lips to silence her.

“So you could get it back by the end of the day.” Amélie calmly spoke, before continuing. “Then I find out my student is hopelessly tripping over herself proclaiming she loves me.”

Slowly, Professor Lacroix removed her finger off of Lena’s lips. “And then I see the voice of reason in a group of four saying my student shouldn’t pursue that, and I agree with her. So,” Amélie swiftly turned back to Lena, her tone shifting to a more serious one. “I suggest you listen to her. I don’t want to get fired when they find out I’m dating one of my own students.”

That was when the professor stood up, picking up her purse. She began walking away, presumably to go back to her office - or home, if she had had enough of this campus for one week.

“ _Adieu, chérie._ ” Her professor had said to her student, raising her hand up from behind to indicate she was leaving.

And from there, Lena sat in silence. She seemed defeated, and a part of her wished that the conversation they just had didn’t go that way. Hell, she wished that conversation never began. She took some time to consider her teacher’s words, but then…

She recalled something.

‘I suggest you listen to her’.

Immediately, Lena retrieved her phone out of her pocket and checked back on her text messages, scrolling just a bit upwards to what Angie had said to her earlier this morning.

‘And if you are for certain you want this to be…a real thing? Do it naturally. Get to know her. Pretend she is someone you’re interested in as a friend, then move forward from there.’

She’d be doing what she wanted all along _and_ doing what Amélie was telling her, and that was a loophole if she ever saw one before. It was perfect. Far, far too perfect.

Her eyes turned back to the direction where her professor had took off, and in the brief instance, she did see Amélie standing under the shades of the trees, looking over her before turning away to resume her own things. Presumably, Professor Lacroix was expecting her to look back or come after her.

So, maybe this thing _could_ work out. She’d just have to figure things out and do it slowly. After all, she still had a year here. That was more than enough time to do what she wanted to do.

_Fuck yes._


	5. Approving Excellence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena gets a reward for her hard work.

Weeks passed, and life seemingly returned to normal for Lena. Now that her professor figured out what was  _really_ going down, she tried hard to try and impress Amélie, be it not in her social skills, but more in the language department.

Thus, she started adapting to her environment again. She had gone from a shitty 12-point grade all the way forward to at least a 16 point or higher, but it’d continue to go farther and farther as time passed. Perhaps this way, she’d probably get the attention of Miss Lacroix.

Even though she still struggled in the more advanced French linguistics, that was where the so-called private lessons came in. Amélie never minded nor brought up anything but the course lessons and more or less helped her student understand them more, and even offered refreshers on some of the basics.

But that never stopped Lena from trying to finish up early. In the spare time they had, she tried to get to know Professor Lacroix better...or at least, she tried to. For every single time they finished up earlier than expected, her professor demanded she study it alone and try to do it herself afterwards. If not, come back and try again. If so, they moved onto the next tidbit of help. Or, simply, the lesson was finished.

It was always the same.

It was just around the week of the first exam for the class. Lena prepared ahead of time, studying hard and making sure she didn’t overexert herself too much. As a final option, she had decided to do one last private lesson before the exam.

* * *

Back at the classroom, the whiteboard seemed to be filled up with various amounts of conjugations and numbers, alongside common refreshers that frequently appeared, such as _connaitre_ vs. _savoir_ , or numbers from 0 to 3000, for the years and for age. Professor Lacroix had grabbed a black whiteboard marker and uncapped it.

“Now, how do you conjugate  _saisir_?” Amélie softly asked, writing the common subject pronouns on her whiteboard, and then handing off her marker to her student.

“ _Je...saisis_? Same goes for the _tu_ form?”

A reaffirming nod from Amélie made Lena feel a bit better as she wrote them down on the whiteboard, and just from memory alone, she filled in ‘ _il saisit_ ’ and ‘ _ils saissent_ ’, leaving only the  _nous_ and _vous_ pronouns empty.

Judging by her reluctance, Lena tried to remember which was which. Even now, trying to differentiate _nous_ and _vous_ was difficult mostly in part that they had a one word difference.

The student softly bit her lip and haphazardly looked around, though not for long as Amélie gave a small smile that caught her attention. “Stuck, are we?”

Lena shook her head in disagreement and wrote down ‘ _saisiss_ ’ on both, though that was a bit too quick on her end. In a slip of mind, she wrote down ‘ _nous saisissez_ ’ and ‘ _vous saisissons_ ’, which was...wrong. Dreadfully wrong.

Nervously, Lena turned to face her professor and ask for a nod of approval, though all she got was a head-shake, and a finger gesture to reverse the two. As a result, she softly groaned and chuckled. “Was my first guess…”

“Well,” Professor Lacroix simply shrugged, “at least you’re one of the few who got most of it right. The rest of the class seems to be lagging behind.”

Amélie’s phone began ringing inside her purse, and she took a moment to fetch it and to ignore the call for now. However, as she pressed the ignore button, she looked at the time and blinked a few times.

“ _Hm_ , I don’t recall it being an hour already. Time sure flies.”

That was all the time they had for this lesson. Normally it’d be longer but, the professor needed to go due to some family business unfolding. She wouldn’t say what, and everyone didn’t have the privilege to hear. A couple minutes later, the distant tolls of the bells to signal the next hour ticking in came to pass.

Professor Lacroix shuffled her purse around her shoulder, pushing up her eyeglasses back up her bridge and erased the board while Lena made sure all of her belongings got back to where they were. While she was halfway done, Amélie seemingly finished quicker than Lena did, and put a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ll succeed. Just...study a bit more like you always do.”

With that, she went off and out the door. However, something came up in Lena’s head as she swiftly exited out, trailing right behind her professor and gently poking her on the arm, though after Amélie turned around she wasn’t quite sure how to word.

“I...I-I was wondering if you would uh…” Lena stammered, tapping her foot nervously, “um...hang out sometime?”

Miss Lacroix cocked her head to the side, curious as to what Lena was trying to pull. “Why?”

There was weak laughter from her student as Lena stammered some more and twiddling with her fingers. “Ahaha! Just as friends, yeah! Wanna get to know you some more! Hahaha!”

Amélie didn't think too much about how forced and awkward that came out, but her curiosity at this point was piqued. She crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “Name it.”

“Co... _coooooo_ …” Her student droned on, until Professor Lacroix furrowed her eyebrows and snapped her fingers. “Coffee! Yeah, coffee!”

Now at this point this had to be some elaborate joke. Maybe Gérard set her up for it, or maybe it was just an inside thing she wasn’t meant to know about. Whatever the case, Amélie slightly lowered her head so she could eyeball Lena without her glasses.

“...Uh-huh…” She slowly nodded, and then began walking away again, much more disinterested.

At this point, Lena perked up and reached out. “Wait!” She had shouted, almost tripping over herself. Once more, Amélie stopped and glanced back, now a little bit annoyed.

“Just once? If you don’t like it I’ll never bring it up again and--and I’ll leave it alone!”

Silence. Then, a sigh. “I don’t know if you’re pulling my leg, or...if someone put you up to this.”

Rapidly, Lena shook her head to reassure this was entirely her plan. All she got in return was more awkward silence, until Professor Lacroix tisked and exhaled.

“I’ll make you a deal. If you can get a high score on the exam - and I am talking about a high 90% - I’ll think about it. Now,” For the last time today, Amélie turned back to where she was headed and began walking. “I must go. For real.”

As she walked, Lena stood there, just a tad-bit frozen. Great, now she needed to study real hard and things would be really easy...or would it?

* * *

The day of the exam came. Everybody felt a sense of unease when they were handed their respective sheets and the hour began. Rather than be alone in monitoring the students, Gérard for the day became a monitor for the back-rows. After the test would be done, everybody had the option to leave and go on with their life. Everyone else got spread out. No two people were allowed to sit next to each other, and each had to have a required seat apart from them.

When Professor Lacroix said they needed to study, by fucking _god_ , they had to study. There were random silent groans when her students progressed onward, whether it be something they forgot or something difficult they needed more time to brush up on, that was their own problem. If they couldn’t pass it, they just should’ve tried harder.

But not for Lena. She desperately needed to pass this exam. She studied and pulled a few late-nighters, but nothing too serious that would be detrimental. Yes, she did say to herself she wouldn’t push it, but she really wanted to impress her professor this time around no matter what.

She seemed to be the only one confident enough to get this exam done, and in record time to boot. When things were beginning to wrap up, Lena was the first one to turn it in and thus, the first to leave.

If she could channel that confidence into their first outing - that is, assuming she even passes with the requirements to score an outing - maybe she could get her professor to turn her attitude around.

Maybe? Hell, she was prepared to even fail and not get what she wanted.

As the last student turned his papers in, Gérard’s time here was done. He had opted to grade the papers, but Miss Lacroix insisted she do them herself. With a fat stack of papers in her hand, she preferred not to whittle around on campus grounds. Rather, Amélie made her way home to grade these papers. There’d be nobody to disturb the peace, and nobody to bug her with anything school-related. When she had arrived back into her own home, the first thing she did was get working on it in time to pass them back tomorrow.

After some few finished grades for students, she became a bit displeased at the results of her class, though she could not express it, for no one was there to complain to. Deliberately of course, she tried not to write any insulting remarks on her students’ papers, and only percentages.

For a while the scores jumped between 50% to at least a decent 86% for a student in the far back whom she probably thought wasn’t doing good, but...this exam might be a fluke. Regardless, the paper she turned on next was Lena’s, and she got busy grading it.

Her eyes roughly skimmed over the parts everyone else got, and her main focus was on the tough sections and the little tidbits she knew most got wrong. With a grading pen in her hand, Amélie unexpectedly had to set it down to re-read the answers.

No. There wasn’t an incorrect answer on the tough parts.

In fact, the answers Lena gave to her were  _all_ correct.

After a brief moment, Professor Lacroix set the paper down, blinking a few times. She checked the time to see that about an hour had passed, and she wasn’t aware that even happened. A couple more papers and she’d be ready, but...that could be for later.

She couldn’t believe it. Lena had actually exceeded her expectations. She can’t possibly break her end of the deal now, and given that so far a foreign exchange student managed to  _beat her fellow native French-speaking students_...that was something else.

“There’s hope for you yet, Miss Oxton...” Amélie muttered, softly grinning before grabbing her grading pen, and began scribbling something.

* * *

And now, the moment of reckoning. The French students came into class, each having a semi-class discussion about how they thought they did on the test. Without the professor around, they seemed more lax on talking than they usually did while she was in here.

Most thought they probably failed it, which was pretty much the typical majority. Though, most were curious as to how Lena reacted to it. Simply put, she shrugged and passed it off as a relatively alright test. In return, a good chunk of the kids rolled their eyes and made comments wondering if she was serious.

About a minute before class officially began, Professor Lacroix had arrived carrying a stack of graded papers with her and casually set them down on her desk.

“Good afternoon, class. I managed to finish grading these papers last night, you’ll get them back later.”

Upon taking her seat, she had encountered several hands raised in the air. Undoubtedly they were rather simple questions such as ‘What was the highest score’ or ‘Is this exam going to be curved’ or whatever the students had in mind.

There would be a major curve, at the very least. At least she wasn’t the cruelest professor around the block, but it didn’t change that she passive-aggressively chewed out her students.

“The average for this exam is...exceedingly poor. I expected far better.” She had disappointingly began, “Previously, all classes I have taught at least had an 80%, but no lower than 70%. This class could only scrape a 65%, with the exception of a few select students.”

The class went silent, though Amélie shrugged and patted the stack of papers. “A 65% is not the worst grade you can get, but here in this University, you must strive to be better. This will be the only large curve I give.”

When it came near time to pack up and go home, that was when the exams were to be passed back. Rather than go in alphabetical order - something Professor Lacroix liked doing - she decided to pass them in the order she saw fit. For what it was looking like, she gave back the worst grades first and progressively better ones were last, but none of her students knew about that anyway.

Mutters filled the air as students talked to their friends, wondering if they could take some time to get tutoring after-school, or at the very least switch professors.

As more and more of them exited, class-time bled over just a little bit when the final student left behind was just Lena herself. She had been anxiously anticipating for her test back, as it was rather evident based on how jittery her leg was bouncing up and down throughout the call-ups of other kids.

Amélie smiled, feeling rather content about withholding her paper. But, she had to reveal it sometime. So, with a delicate gesture, she beckoned Lena to come up to her.

Lena swallowed, and almost tripped coming up to her professor’s desk. The last paper was faced-down and protectively held by Amélie, just before she neatly slid it to Lena, saying nothing.

Her hands shook, but she grabbed a hold of her exam, closing her eyes and flipping it over. And then...one eye opened up.

A rather large sticky-note had blocked off her score, albeit it left a big ‘0%’ to be seen. By illusions alone, Lena’s heart fluttered and she panicked a smidge, until she realized that the sticky-note was there.

“Is...is there supposed to be a sticky on my paper?”

All Amélie did was smile some more and nod, acting coy. She rotated her chair so her body was facing her student, where she clasped her hands together and crossed her legs. “Remove it.”

So Lena did, though really, really slowly. The first thing she had read was her grade: A full 100%. Her eyes then slid over to read the message.

‘ _Quand est-il temps pour le café?'_

“When...is it time for coffee.” Lena read it aloud, feeling a wave of heat strike her, and her heart skipped a beat. Her hands managed to lower the paper as she faced against Amélie, who graciously chuckled.

“You were the only student. I think you deserve to get to know me if you keep this up.” She pursed her lips, and handed Lena a spare pencil. “Write down a time.”

No pencil was really required as Lena set it back on the desk. “H-how ‘bout tomorrow?”

Amélie shrugged and hummed positively before nodding. “I have nothing planned for tomorrow aside from a small meeting with the administration.” She had began, double-checking to make sure she was correct. Indeed she was. “So I suppose right after your classes, then?”

Tomorrow was a Friday. That’d be perfectly fine seeing as her schedule was practically free, and all the homework could wait for later. Without even thinking, Lena just nodded rapidly and awkwardly grinned.

“Sounds brilliant! I’ll...I’ll be there!”

“Good. You know where to find me, yes?”

Then, Professor Lacroix stood up, and grabbed her purse, heading out of the classroom. “If you’ve any questions feel free to visit me later today.”

The door shut, and from that point on, Lena had the hugest burden lifted off of her shoulders. She started fist-pumping the air and silently chanting ‘Yes’ multiple times, all while getting her exam stuffed back into a folder for safekeeping.

She got her wish and approval. Now all she needed to do…

was find the nearest fucking coffee shop.

And try not being _too_ gay to prevent any suspicions.


	6. Our First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena gets her mind blown three times in one day.

Coffee.

If one thing Lena learned, this was _probably_ a mistake and a half. Coffee was the worst fucking idea she had ever planned, mainly because she hadn’t the slightest clue where to even start looking, let alone taste the blends of French coffee. In short, she knew fuckall about coffee around these parts.

But she promised, and she didn’t like breaking promises. On top of, this was her college professor she was asking out on a friendly outing. There was no way she could back out of it without hurting Professor Lacroix’s feelings after she had earned her trust.

The final hours of the university slowly trickled away as Friday afternoon eventually came. Students and professors alike were more than ready to get comfortable into the weekend, yet there was still so much to be done before their first official break was to be scheduled.

Nevertheless, when the bell rang, every student was more than glad it was over, and Lena headed straight towards Amélie’s office once more. A nerve-wracking wave of anxiety rushed inside her, but the student furrowed her eyebrows and grumbled to herself.

_You asked for this, Lena. Woman up. Win her trust some more. Ask her how her day was doing! Simple shit! Why can’t you do something so simple?!_

All those thoughts roamed around in her head. Eventually, when she had made it to the vicinity of the office, things mellowed out on her end. At least, until Gérard burst through the office door, looking worried. They were speaking native French, which Lena had been able to easily decipher.

“Amélie, _please!_ ” He pleaded to no avail. The door between them had been left open only enough that Gérard’s from covered most of the interior space within, thus obscuring Miss Lacroix from view.

“For the last time, Gérard, I am going to be unavailable this afternoon and this weekend. I ask you to leave, I expect you to comply.”

Amélie’s voice had a very uneasy sense of calmness to it, which seemed to scare Gérard more than anything.

“ _Loin avec vous._ ” Amélie ordered, now harsher in tone. Before her assistant could even react, the professor slammed the door shut and applied her ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign up, in comparison to the previous ‘Please Knock’ sign.

“ _Great…_ ” Gérard muttered, rubbing his cheek. It had been noticeably red - presumably from being slapped - and walked away. Seemingly oblivious that Lena was nearby, he resumed his own daily tasks that the professor set him up to do, though now in deep shame.

Nervously swallowing, Lena clenched her hand into a fist, and gently knocked on the door. Even though this was a fairly stupid idea given how easily irritated her professor’s mood was, she did it anyway.

A couple moments later, Amélie rapidly opened up the door and prepared to deliver a lecture. “I thought I told you that I --” She stopped mid-way, only to find that Lena was standing in her presence, rather than that annoyance of a man in her stead. Her expression changed from a stern glower to one of soft kindness. Then, a smile spread itself on her lips. She cleared her throat, trying to remember her English.

“Ah. Lena. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lecture. I hope you didn’t see me with my assistant.”

Her student giggled some, and scratched her head. “Well...you two argue like a married couple if I gotta be honest. ‘Cept it’s one-sided.”

Professor Lacroix rolled her eyes. “Married? Tch, doubtful.” For a moment, she considered the idea before deeming it too silly, and she leaned her shoulder on the doorway. “He’s three years my age and yet he acts like a boy. I’d only want to marry a man - a grown one at that.”

“So you’re saying he’s not your type?”

“No, he just...” Amélie drifted off, though she shook her head a few times and blinked. “Where are you going with this? Don’t we have a coffee date?”

The word ‘date’ caught Lena off-guard, and made her feel flushed. Last she remembered, this was a simple, friendly, non-romantic coffee ‘outing’. Nope. Not a date. Not a date whatsoever. She wanted to correct her professor, but knowing how she felt, Lena would only stumble over words like the gay nerd she was.

Instead, she just nodded, and actively tried not looking at Amélie directly.

“Well, did you find us a place?”

Sadly, this was where Lena had to respond back with a negative head-shake. She lowered her head. She was no expert on finding any baristas around Paris, nor any decently good location. In fact, the past few weeks she’d buried herself in work just for the first exam that she had no time to do anything.

Regardless, Amélie softly chuckled and grinned. “Always have a Plan B. I know a good place somewhere on _Rue Cler_ . You can probably see the _Tour de Eiffel_ from there, too.”

“Really?” Lena perked up suddenly, now filled with relief they could at least hang out together. “What’s the name?”

“It’s the _Cygne Noir_ Café. I am positive you won’t mistake it for any other building in the market street.”

If memory served her right, she had stopped by _Rue Cler_ once. Though, Lena couldn’t recall worth shit if she saw a sign that read _Cygne Noir_ or not. Also if memory served her right, she accidentally made her way there instead of getting there on purpose. When she did, she nearly got in a minor car accident due to how narrow the street was that day.

GPS could serve her well on finding a suitable parking lot, or at least helping navigate to where Miss Lacroix wanted her to be. The student just pulled out her phone and dialed in notes for the maps app to find, and within moments, it presented her a perfectly viable route to drive in no less than twenty some minutes with good traffic.

Amélie had placed a hand on Lena’s shoulder and put up that warm smile of hers again. “I’m going home really quick to change, if that’s okay.”

“...Change? And here I thought the only thing in your wardrobe was professional clothes!”

“Very funny. Now, I’ll meet you at the café later, yes?”

A simple nod from Lena was all it took for Amélie to nod back. “ _Bon._ I look forward to it.”

* * *

Despite being one of the most famous market streets in all of Paris, _Rue Cler_ on a Friday afternoon seemed surprisingly calm. It was rare to even find a good parking spot - even rarer that it was right next to the market itself - but Lena had made it after some diligent searching.

No building around the area as far as she was concerned had the sign of a Cygne Noir anywhere to be found. Things seemed to be lost, until Lena turned the corner and checked on the building on the opposite side of the market.

A rather tall building with a swanky looking black swan as their logo. In a fancy font just next to the swan, it read, _‘Cygne Noir Café’_. There seemed to be people all the way on the rooftops, judging by one person’s arm hanging off of the railing.

Lena had gone inside, now noticing the elevator up towards the terrace above. The atmosphere in here was rather cozy, and the smell of freshly brewed caffeine and some other smell lingered about. Was it bread or...meats? That just made absolutely no sense.

That is, until she looked at the board filled with various assortments of light comfort food and assortments of coffee products, from a cup of coffee to purchasing bags of coffee beans - hell, there was even different flavored coffee cakes up for grabs if people wanted something fresh and new.  Somehow, all of this fancy stuff was something Lena could actually afford on a college budget. How they managed to keep business booming and rake in enough positive revenue was beyond her.

Service seemed fast enough, and Lena had already asked for a medium-sized cup of medium-roasted cappuccino with milk. If she had known her mixes better she’d have probably ordered something more extravagant, but something simple instead suited her just fine.

When Lena had taken her seat next to a window, only then could she hear the snazzy and upbeat lounge music playing over the loudspeakers. While her coffee was still fairly hot, she let it simmer down. It was nice and all that she could at least relax now, but... Amélie had yet to show up. The sights outside of the window were more of a treat to her eyes, and yes indeed - she could, in fact, see the Eiffel Tower from here. It’d probably be best if it were on the terrace above, but today, she felt like staying indoors

With that, Lena pulled out her phone and began waiting around, opting to listen to her own tunes rather than the lounge music. She casually surfed the web, checked her grades, and caught up reading up text messages between herself and her friends, alongside occasionally took small sips of her coffee. If nothing else, she was buried in her little screen pressing buttons to send messages back and forth, just waiting there.

Eventually, in the midst of her tunes changing tracks, she had an earbud unplugged to make sure nobody would be ignored on accident. Lena’s eyes were closed for the most part, and her coffee was perfectly warm to drink still. Then, within earshot, she heard the sound of a throat clearing.

“I hope I didn’t make you wait too long, _mon amie_.”

Without looking, Lena took one sip of her coffee again and opened her eyes.

Amélie had already taken a seat down, softly smiling with her glasses on and her hair now down instead of into a ponytail. Now, instead of her regular professor attire, she had worn a beige autumn sweater and a pair of dark blue jeans and...purple sneakers.

“Ho--” Lena choked upon seeing her professor the way she was now. She coughed up her drink and almost fell out of her chair trying to calm herself.

Who _was_ this? This _couldn’t_ be Amélie! The Professor Lacroix she knew was uptight and looked reserved, and also...so, so intimidating. The person in front of her looked rather nerdy and casual. No way they were the same person!

All that preparation for not being gay on this outing? Thrown out the goddamn window. Lena’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment and timidness when she got back in her seat, and now she was bouncing her leg up and down from the anxiety of it all.

 _Shit,_ Lena thought to herself, _It’s just like the first day I met her all over again, but times two!_

She took a few deep breaths and nervously swallowed, trying so hard not to look at her professor lest she get slain by her beauty again.

_Don’t let your gay show, Oxton. Don’t let your gay show!_

“Your gay is showing, Lena.” Amélie softly chuckled, pressing her chin onto her hand. “Are you _that_ surprised to see me this way?”

Rapidly, Lena shook her head and felt uncomfortably hot. “N-No! No, absolutely not! I-I’m just uhh...umm…” She actively searched around for a bathroom, or at least somewhere to hide in shame.

“Well, there you go again, babbling like a buffoon.” Miss Lacroix had teased. “You must be _really_ happy to see me.”

She couldn’t take it anymore. She was sweating bullets at this point, and felt the gentle flutter of butterflies in her stomach. If Lena didn’t collect herself right fucking _now_ , she’d probably faint, or do something stupid.

“I gotta go to the bathroom!” The student exclaimed, standing up. She accidentally tripped herself within the first step out of her chair, further embarrassing herself in front of her professor. She daren’t look back, in fear that Amélie was getting a kick out of this.

The first person she had made contact with afterwards was a waitress who gave her directions to the bathroom, and the same waitress who would arrive with Amélie’s little cake and her cup of coffee. While Lena was gone, Professor Lacroix began snacking on her dessert.

_Meanwhile in the bathroom…_

Lena hurriedly splashed cold water on her face, trying to cool herself off from that little episode outside. She took deep breaths, still furiously blushing from witnessing Amélie. On top of that, her professor was right. She ended up looking like a blithering idiot - and that was only backed by the fact she fell on a flat surface.

“Woman up, remember? Woman up! Woman _UP!_ You gotta face her!” Lena said back to herself in the mirror, clenching her fists together.

But could she even face her teacher right now? She was even able to be dealt with when she had gentle smiles and an uptight attitude. But now that Professor Lacroix was unrestrained? _No._ Fuck no. She didn’t sign up for this level of gay - as she self-proclaimed _since day one_. When Lena was just about done drying her face off, the door opened up.

“Everything okay? Your coffee’s getting cold.”

Just when things were about to finally settle down, Amélie personally sought out her student. All that progress... _gone_ . _Again._ Once more, Lena shook her head with her eyes widened. She pursed her lips and squeaked, really hoping she didn’t come a step further.

With a head tilt and a minor exhale, Miss Lacroix just nodded. “Okay. I’ll be at my seat.” The bathroom door slid shut afterwards, and Lena held both of her hands on top her head.

She couldn’t hide forever, and she had to deal with this one way or another. Perhaps, if she imagined Amélie with some interest in her (because she did reference this as a date, after all) she might fare better.

So maybe, that was Lena’s plan from here on out. She exited the bathroom, though still her eyes wandered about. She cautiously took her seat, making sure she got her footing right, and reached out for her cup of coffee.

Aside from the ambient noise that was the jazz music playing in the background, the two of them remained there in rather awkward silence. Considering this wasn’t much of a date so far, the student smacked her lips and put on a goofy little smile.

“Your sweater looks nice on you.”

“Oh?” Amélie lightly chuckled and raised her glasses back up her nose. “Well, maybe because this is the first time anybody’s really seen it.”

“Speaking of though…” Her student tapped her fingers on the table anxiously, “How come you’ve never shown people...this?”

“What? My sweater?”

Her student shook her head. “Y-You.”

“Oh.” Amélie flatly said, then giggled a bit. ”What? You think professors have no lives outside of their classroom? Please.” She shrugged and bit her lower lip. “This is me. But rather, dropping that strict ‘I will fail you for looking at me the wrong way’ behavior, I guess? Did you expect someone else?”

Then the professor remembered the purpose of this date, and brushed off whatever was on her mind with a light bit of laughter. “Right, you wanted to get to know me. Ask me something.”

Now that things were rolling along, Lena could finally shine. She rubbed her chin - though still actively avoiding looking at her professor - and snapped her fingers. “Do you teach anything else besides French?”

Sadly, Amélie just shook her head. “I wish I could teach a musical class or a ballet class. But, they aren’t short-handed on those instructors.”

"Why those, in particular?” Lena replied back.

“Well, I like what I could do instead of just teaching a common language. I mean,” Amélie scoffed and lifted her hand up, letting it fall in the process. “aside from teaching the basics of everyday French I’d like to do something artistic.”

“And...what can you tell me about yourself?” Her student had nervously asked.

“Well...you know my age already and what I do. I was born in Annecy. And like I said, I wish I could teach ballet. My favorite color is blue, though if I feel pretty I’d want more purples than blues. Occasionally it’s black, too.” The professor rubbed her chin, then shrugged. “Pretty normal person.”

“Is ballet like a hobby for you?”

There was a slight pause.

“A...little.” Professor Lacroix began, taking a sip out of her coffee cup. “I quit ballet and piano lessons for a while.”

Though vague, Lena wanted to push that envelope some more. This was, after all, the reason they came here in the first place. To quit something so promising to become a professor seemed very off, at least in Lena’s way of thinking.

“And what did your family say about that?” Lena tilted her head to the side.

Another pause, though this time Amélie’s tone went from chipper to a bit of a serious one. “They didn’t take kindly to it, actually. Said I was foolish to throw away something that great.” She sighed, and muttered something indistinct in French that Lena couldn’t quite catch. All of a sudden, things went silent again as Amélie was looking down at her plate, pondering.

Lena couldn’t help but feel like something was off. Her teacher had been so cheerful earlier and now, it was weirdly serious. Before another moment had passed, Amélie looked up from her plate and right into Lena’s eyes.

“I’m sor--” Lena tried to begin, but her professor cut her off.

“Don’t be. Just…” She stopped, and furrowed her eyebrows. “I think you deserve to know who I really am.”

* * *

Lena blinked a few times, now dumbstruck. She didn’t even say anything and yet, this was now somehow warranted. ‘Deserve to know who I really am’? Was Amélie not who she was claiming to be?

Her professor took a deep breath and exhaled. “Recall back to our first meeting when I said Parisians think they should have it easy.”

This again? She wasn’t quite sure what Amélie was going on about and, frankly, her distinct hatred of Parisians seemed to be a bit fixated. In return, Lena just nodded and shut up.

“I mean it when they want easy money and easy women.”

Amélie swallowed, and pursed her lips before laughing again. “God, I’ve never told anybody this. This is embarrassing.”

“...Go on.”

“Let me ask you something: Are you aware of Gérard’s last name?”

Lena tried to recall what she knew about Gérard, though it seems that his last name was never brought up, and therefore she didn’t know it. “I’m actually not.”

“It’s...Lacroix.”

Now this was getting real freaky. Lena’s eyes widened at that and she was really bewildered now. Lacroix? As in, Amélie Lacroix and Gérard Lacroix? “What?! Are you two like --”

“ _No!_ No...it’s...we’re not married, we’re not related or anything. I…” Professor Lacroix trailed off, though in a few moments she was covering her face. “I don’t even know if this was a good idea.”

“Tell me.” Lena spoke, now more interested. “I won’t tell anyone else if you do.”

Amélie bit her lower lip softly. “I took the last name Lacroix before I even knew Gérard. The chances of meeting someone with the same name is...very awkward.”

“So, what’s your last name?”

That was where Amélie went silent and felt a bit uncomfortable. The professor scratched the back of her head and tapped her fingers on the table. “You promise?” She wanted assurance, and Lena nodded alongside giving a little smile.

“...Guillard.”

Her student didn’t even flinch, and only blinked a few times. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

A slight wave of relief came over Amélie. She had almost forgotten Lena was a foreign exchange student, and thus had no idea how much weight a last name such as hers held.

“The Guillard family is very important to France, mainly because I descend from Knighthood since the days of the Revolution and they helped build France for what it is today. We’re royalty, and thus...” She placed her hands on the table and began nervously twiddling her thumbs. “I’m...kind of a big deal.”

Only then did Lena get it. She now had a sense of who she was really interested in, and started feeling hot again. “O-Oh…sooooo...you’re...”

The professor just nodded. “Yup. I’m stupid rich and I am your professor whom you’re gay for. But I left the former behind.”

 _I'm interested in a bloody rich girl who is now leagues and leagues above my gay ass,_ Lena thought to herself. _Fucking shit._

Lena started feeling sweaty again, until Amélie began speaking. “That’s why Gérard is very interested in me, actually. He figured it out and I never told him. He wants my money, and because I’m a woman he’s probably thinking I have to marry someone for it.”

“So why did you leave?! You have all the money in the world!” Lena blurted out, though carelessly. She then realized what she said and covered her mouth.

_Now you done fucked up, Oxton._

But, despite what Lena thought to herself about, Amélie just giggled. “I don’t want to live a life where everything is handed to me for free. My piano and ballet lessons? Given for free by professionals. Is that even a bad idea?”

Lena still couldn’t really even comprehend it. She was sitting just across someone who seemed like an average person, and for the longest time she always thought…

What are thoughts even, now? Nothing in this moment made sense to her, and for the first time, she felt lost.

“That doesn’t mean you should call me Amélie Guillard. I’m still Professor Lacroix to the world, so I suggest --” She got cut off.

“W-Why me?” Lena stuttered.

She grinned, and chuckled some.  “If I never told you this, you’d never think different of me. Am I right?”

Lena just nodded.

“There’s your answer.”

She still didn’t understand, but...it seemed reasonable enough. Still, Lena was just a simple girl from London. To get the opportunity to meet someone of royalty was in the realm of impossibility, and how she met one was the most unlikely of ways to do so.

The only thing she could do right now was finish off her cup of coffee. She wanted to leave, though that felt like the wrong thing to do. Things settled down back to normal in a bit, but Lena was more or less uncomfortable with the idea at first.

Amélie downed the last bit of caffeine in her cup and sighed. “Well, I came here for a date. I’m not satisfied just yet. I’ll tell you what,” Amélie scooted herself closer to Lena, and beckoned her student to come close.

Oh, _god_. Now this was going to be the closest she’d ever get, and she really, really felt nervous getting up close and personal. Reluctantly, she leaned in.

Then she felt the sense of warm lips pressing up against hers, and it disappeared just as quick as it came. Did...did Professor Lacroix just kiss her? _On the lips?!_

Amélie just chuckled, and held onto Lena by the shoulder. “If you keep this a secret between you and I, more of that will come. But, not in the classroom nor after class. I don’t want to get fired, after all.” She let go of Lena, and then sat back down.

By then, Lena felt light-headed and fell right back into her chair just before fainting, and distinctly hearing Amélie’s laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally there was gonna be one more chapter to serve as a build-up before they kissed, but...nah. Guillard being Amélie's maiden name as a reveal retconned my idea because it was too good to pass up.


	7. From Zero to A Hundred And Back Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena gets what she deserves, but not what she needed.

_“Lena.”_ A French accent rang out into the air, albeit muffled through all the high-pitched white noise the student could make out. She lightly groaned, shaking her head just as she had felt a light breeze tickle her on the nose. Then, her eyes slowly opened up to see Amélie gently fanning her student’s face.

“Wake up.”

She did, but not without her heart skipping a beat and immediately jolting her. She vaguely recalled fainting earlier, and fell back into her chair with an elongated sigh. With a soft chuckle, Amélie gently waved at her student. “There she is! Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“How...how long was I out?” Lena groggily spoke out, now trying to remember where she was and why she passed out.

“About fifteen minutes, give or take.”

“Oh. Not too bad at...least…” Lena then remembered her predicament and earlier pratfalls. At the revelation, she fell out of her chair, grunting. Her eyes widened, and - again - she began stuttering. _“Y-y-y-y-y-yuhhh!”_ Lena ended up pointing directly at her professor, now at a complete loss for words while still down on the floor. “Kiss!”

More incoherent babbling from Lena, it seemed. But that was really not surprising for Amélie, considering she liked the idea of being a big tease. She just...smiled, and set the little fan back on the table. “First one’s free.”

Lena hoped that was a joke and it was an accident.

She had extended her hand out so Lena could grab it and get back up from her chair, though her student seemed fairly reluctant to get back up. Inevitably, push came to shove, and Amélie felt compelled to just bring Lena back up by forcefully dragging her. “Come on, Lena.” Her professor raised the chair back up and sat Lena back down. _“N’ai pas peur!”_

That didn’t just happen.

No, god dammit that didn’t _just happen_. Was Amélie reading her mind, especially just before they had even arrived in the café? This was supposed to be a simple outing and yet, somehow, Lena got kicked in the face by how unpredictable the past few minutes were.

Today wasn’t real. Nope. Not at _all._ Somewhere out there in the world Professor Lacroix was looking down upon her because she was a buffoon. This date wasn’t real. She wasn’t laughing away at her misfortunes or just out of the blue kissing her 19-year-old student on the lips.

The waitress from earlier had arrived again with a requested hot towel and Amélie’s second cup of coffee. Confused and unsure of things, Lena just sat there with wide eyes like a deer in the headlights, awkwardly staring at their server before she moved away.

Presumably, that hot towel was meant for her. The professor sitting just across from her smugly took a sip from her second cup of coffee. As she set it down on a saucer, Amélie rested her chin using her thumb and index finger whilst her elbow supported it.

“Well,” Amélie tilted her head again. “I’m sure you’re having mixed signals, aren’t you?”

That was putting it delicately, holy _god._ Lena didn’t even get permission to use the hot towel; she just went after it and wanted to get away from this embarrassing scene.

But there it was again.

That light-hearted chuckle emitting from across the table, and an equally delicate smile to greet her with an ethereally warm glow to it.

And that made her blush even more with an added amount of tiny squealing, as Lena found it hard to breathe in the presence of her professor right now. She wished that it was the first day of school again, because that Amélie compared to now was...refined, and very sophisticated. That ‘I am unapproachable’ feeling, combined with the stern and serious looks she gave, and yet she never seemed to have any other emotion outside of anything serious.

Compared to the Amélie before her now, it seemed like she was very interested since the first meeting. So incredibly filled with the joy of life, and so carefree about it all as well. It seemed...awkward, and out of place. Yet they always did say that looks are deceiving, and to never judge a book by its cover.

Lena did in fact have questions, but the sheer amount of fuckery going through her head was trying to process its way and not slip out by accident. She took a deep breath and exhaled just the same, neatly folding back the hot towel. She had gazed at her professor, who in return had the intent of answering any questions thrown her way.

“...You like me, don’t you?” Lena had said, throwing a bit of confidence in her voice.

All Amélie really did was shrug. “I did say you were brilliant the first time we spoke face-to-face, did I not?”

She did. As a matter of fact, Lena kind of took it personally on that day, but thought nothing of it. Little did she know, that was definitely how her professor saw her.

“And...the kiss?”

A light chuckle was heard, just before Professor Lacroix moved her hands down to relax on the table.

“Like I said. If you never knew me as Amélie Guillard, you’d love me just the same, _oui?_ ”

A single nod came from Lena.

“Then it should be quite obvious. My money and my heritage mean little to you.”

It was then Amélie leaned in again and had her smug little smile again. “The only thing on your mind is loving me, not as an object of value, but as a person. That, and impressing me.” She leaned back, and her smile faded. “That’s why I chose to kiss you.”

Lena swallowed, feeling beads of sweat fall down once more. This time, however, she wouldn’t let it get to her and instead, she kept on being a bit defensive, lest she get unexpectedly kissed. Or hugged. Or anything that’d cause her to hurl herself out the window in embarrassment.

“Is that all?”

“Hrm,” Amélie rubbed her chin. “You are quite adorable, I’ll give you that.”

And there goes all that confidence. Lena sank in her chair and started blushing again, now nervously laughing just as a response.

“But,” Her professor’s tone immediately shifted. It sounded more like the old Amélie, or rather the one Lena was used to. “I am well aware that you are timid around this side of me. If you want...I could just go back to my professional self. You seem more comfortable with that.”

“N-no! It was just outta left field is all! I’ll adapt real quick!”

Of course, that made her professor lightly chuckle again. “Good. You’re in France. Maybe I should teach you how to be less timid and more…” She licked her lips, then looked away coyly. “Enticing.”

She already fainted once, but Lena didn’t want to faint again. Instead, she just squirmed in her chair with widened eyes and a very worried expression painted on her face. She hated how she was somehow really, really easy for her to melt into her professor’s hands, and how easy it was that Amélie would always constantly tease her to no end, intentionally or not.

_Curse her! I’m too bloody gay for this!_

Rather than say anything else, Lena just let it happen and shook whatever was on her mind out. Save for the jazzy music in the café still in the background, things died down after that. Amélie downed her second cup of coffee, just in time for the waitress to come pick up the towel and both of their respective cups.

For a while, Lena went back to viewing her phone, though she occasionally snapped a picture of her professor to send to her friends.

* * *

**Lena:** (Picture of Amélie again)

**Lena:** I have a bit of regret for this decision

**Angie:** Is this not what you wanted?

**Angie:** Because it sounds like this isn’t what you wanted.

**Lena:** It is!! She just kissed me too!

**Angie:** _She_ kissed you? Are you sure it’s not you who kissed _her_?

**Lou:** wooooo you got some!

**Lou:** bettin’ you deserve it too

**Lena:** Me kiss her?  n o……...

**Hana:** proof?

**Lena:** I don’t actually ha

**Hana:** ha? are u laughing at me?

 

_Lena is typing…_

* * *

Amélie had swiftly snatched Lena’s phone away from her, curious as to what was diverting her attention away.

“ _Hey!_ Not okay!” Her student pouted, trying to take her device back.

The professor really wasn’t listening, nor was she letting her student have it back, not at the moment. She skimmed through the messages, and had a sly smirk on her face. “Proof, she says?” She leaned in on the table, moving her saucer and coffee cup away. “Is she that desperate to see us together?”

“It’s not that important! Don’t encourage her either!”

Amélie hummed, taking hold of Lena’s phone still. She stood up, moving over to where her student was sitting. “If she wants it so much, I have no reason not to comply.” She knelt down slightly, and toggled the functionality for a selfie to be taken. Her body then brushed up against Lena’s own, and she gave a soft smile.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Say _fromage, ma chérie_.”

“ _Fr...fromage_?” Lena eyeballed her professor, who was on her left. Just before a photo was snapped, a rather awkward smile was placed on Lena’s lips, followed by her blushing just at how close her professor was in terms of personal space.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Amélie rose back up and hummed, pulling the chat back up from the background.

* * *

**Hana:** listen man i get that shes good for u but

**Hana:** just bc u got a smoking hot gf now doesnt mean anything to me

**Hana:** so dont laugh k?

**“Lena”:** (Selfie)

**“Lena”:** I hope this is enough evidence to sate your oh so curious appetite, petite fille.

**“Lena”:** Oh, and Hana?

**“Lena”:** I’ll definitely speak French between her legs. All night.

**“Lena”:** Don’t pretend you’re jealous she’s got a ‘smoking hot girlfriend’ who will do that and you don’t.

**Hana:** _W H A T_

**Lou:** _daaaaaamn_

**Angie:** …

**Angie:** Not a good time for me to come back to this chat, I think. I’ll be going.

**Hana:** NO U STAY RIGHT HERE

**Hana:** THIS BINCH

**Hana:** C’MERE U DRY BAGUETTE

**Hana:** ILL FITE U

**Hana:** _YOU HEAR ME?!_

 

**“Lena”:** Oh, yes. I do hear you, child.

**“Lena”:** I would very much enjoy seeing you fly over here and try.

**“Lena”:** Adieu~  <3

 

**Hana:** FUCK OFF IM NOT A CHILD

**Angie:** Hana. Please calm down. All-caps rage is not going to get you anywhere.

* * *

“Here you are.” Amélie smugly chuckled, sliding back Lena’s phone to her student, with the chat still running in the background. Lena reluctantly took it back, unsure of what even just happened. When she scrolled up to read what Amélie put into the chatroom, she squeaked, really, really loudly. On top of, she was visibly shaking from pure nervousness. She struggled to raise her index finger to indicate that a moment was necessary, and she took a long, hard look at her professor.

“W-w-w-why?!” Lena bumbled on, now trying to read a rapid-fire rant that Hana was sending out in her respective Korean language. She didn’t understand it at all, for they were just symbols to her. But, that was the least of her problems right now.

“Why did you even do that?!” Lena was in the midst of her own meltdown trying to process all of this info. “Aghhhh! You can’t be bloody serious!”

“About the girlfriend thing? And the French-speaking between legs?”

“That…” Her nostrils flared up, and she took a deep exhale. “No! My friend!”

“Hana should know better than to tease you like that.” She giggled again, shaking her head. “It shut her up, didn’t it?” Amélie shrugged, and crossed her legs. “Do unto others as they would do unto themselves. She teases you, I tease her.”

Her student groaned, almost in agony about her predicament she had placed herself in. “Why? Why me?”

Maybe this was just some really deep, next-level fever dreams she was having. She was probably sent home early on the account of not feeling well at all. Maybe, this was just a pure fantasy that had gone on for a little bit too long. Even a semblance of sanity would prove she was living inside a dream.

But no. This was completely _fucking batshit crazy._

She slid her head down to her arms on the table, really hoping that Amélie couldn’t see the shame on Lena’s face. Half of her was enjoying this, but the other half...not so much. It was the most mixed amount of signals going around her mind that made things worse; on one end, it was crying out of joy this _was_ happening, and on the next, it was crying out of misery this was _happening_.

Eventually, she’d have to accept it. Angela was right. This was what she wanted, and she’d have to bite and swallow a fairly large bullet as consequence for trying to start something she obviously wasn’t prepared for. As such, the student lifted her head up and calmed herself down.

As the last few sips from Lena’s cold coffee were gone, it was time to leave. In total, both teacher and student spent an hour and thirty minutes in a café. Unrealistically, however, most of that was waiting. With the check paid in full by Professor Lacroix, she softly grinned and laid back on her chair.

“I hope you had as much fun as I did!”

“Not...really.”

Truthfully, it was kind of awkward how things turned out. If Lena had expected it or perhaps saw it coming, maybe she’d have a good time. But, much like 99% of her experience in France, all of it came down to her blundering her way around like an idiot.

“Well, why not?”

“I mean...it was nice, but not the way I thought it’d go.”

On the flip-side, however, a part of Lena had at least gotten to hold onto a secret her professor didn’t want to tell anybody. She felt a bit special that way, even if all the things she did on this date would’ve appalled or embarrassed any other girl dating her.

“Hm...how about I make it up to you in the future, then?” Amélie tilted her head to the side. “Say...Monday after class?”

“Yeah,” Lena spoke, in a rather meek tone. “Monday.”

Then, Amélie nodded and stood up. Just as she was ready to leave, however, she remembered something and sat back down.

“Ah, one moment.” She reached into her handbag, shuffling around all the assorted folders and make-up product inside. The professor had fetched out a black inkpen and set it on the table, and then went about finding a suitable space to write down some things. She had found her stack of sticky-notes, and delicately peeled one off from the stack. With a few obscured scribbles that Lena could not see, Amélie then stuck the note on her student’s arm. “For you.”

Lena blinked a few times, a bit confused at what happened. She peeled off the note and took a glance at what Professor Lacroix wrote for her.

Inscribed on the note was a phone number and an address, relatively closeby to her own place. It was probably just a couple blocks, into the single-person apartment dorms that were often sold out within the first minutes of their sales opening up.

Her head lowered, but her eyes gleamed at Amélie, slackjawed. “You’re having a laugh. You must be.”

“If by ‘having a laugh’ you mean I’m kidding, then no. If by ‘having a laugh’ you mean I had a good date and wish to spend more time with you outside of class, then yes.”

Professor Lacroix began packing back up her purse, grabbing the pen and sticky-notes to put back in. “Next time however,” Amélie began, lifting her purse up to her shoulder. “We talk about your personal life. Would that be okay with you?”

“Could you...could you set the date, then?”

Amélie took a brief moment to reflect on that thought, before lightly humming and nodding. It only seemed fair that they would rotate on who would go next. “Of course. I might need _your_ phone number and address for it though.”

Once more - but for the last time - Amélie brought out her pen and sticky-notes for Lena to write her details in. When she did, Lena then began adding in her professor’s number and the like lest she forget later and accidentally ignore her due to an unrecognized person texting her.

With all that said and done, Amélie smiled and packed away all of her things. “Monday, _oui?_ ”

_“Oui.”_

“Lena?”

Her student looked on towards the professor.

“I’m not always a misbehaver. Just, today I wanted to be a bit more loose. So,” A hand was placed on Lena’s shoulder, then lightly shook. “don’t fret. I’m _much_ nicer and more calm than I gave as an impression.”

What occurred would’ve said otherwise. But, Lena did believe her. After all, Amélie never lied to her. She couldn’t say the same, lest she forget their first meeting. In return, she just nodded, and pondered about what else to say.

“Then this concludes our date. _Adieu_ , Lena.”

Amélie then turned around to make her way out of the Cygne Noir café. Considering they sat a bit farther away, she had bumped into a few waiters and waitresses on the way out. A few steps after, Professor Lacroix had been obscured into the crowd of others, and Lena decided to stand up as well to catch up to her. “Wait up!”

Amélie stopped, just as the door swung open. Rather than hold onto the door forever, she lightly closed it back, shifting around and tilting her head again. “Yes?”

_Now wasn’t the time to mess up._ _Fucking do it, Oxton._

Lena nervously swallowed, and then got up on her tippy-toes, leaning in to press her lips against Amélie’s cheek. It caught her off-guard, but it did feel warranted. Lena stepped back, balancing her feet and clenched her fists together before raising them upwards. “Monday!”

Amélie rolled her eyes and licked her lips. “If you keep this up?” She leaned down towards her student, just to return the favor ten-fold by delivering a tender kiss on Lena’s lips again. Lena squeaked, almost falling back from the suddenness of it all.

“Sunday,” Amélie softly spoke, gently flicking Lena on her cheek. “so I can teach you how to kiss a woman and not be shy about it.”

This time, Lena just froze in place with her eyes widened. Awestruck once more, she flinched before having a goofy smile on her face. “U-uh, y-yeah. Sure, sure. Sunday. I’ll keep my phone not on mute.”

“If I don’t, then Monday.”

At least now, Lena could go home and scream in a pillow all she wanted. But she wouldn’t. Rather, she’d just try to be brave.

Do it for your crush, after all.


	8. Kissing in French

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena is actually brave for once, despite initial thoughts.

That Sunday thing didn’t seem to happen, nor would Monday be picked up as a possible day for them to meet. Or, really, any day afterwards. Though,  what could’ve been expected? Amélie had a life, and so did Lena. Plans change, but that never meant they couldn’t do it some other time. 

It was on the night of the beginning of Fall Break that Lena had completed all of her assignments given to her, and had been laying in her bed with the lights off, and she knew that her little act of being a useless gay wouldn’t be all that beneficial down the long run. She was restless, constantly thinking back on kissing her professor on the lips and on the cheek earlier.

She tossed and turned, hoping to fall asleep and to meet Amélie after they had discussed this in their private chats. This time, however, she’d come in prepared to meet the Amélie she was familiar with. None of that left-field shit she had encountered at the café, but if it were her, she’d still be prepared nonetheless. Lena wanted to know more about her professor, and in return she had already offered to her professor her fair share of her own past.

This was exciting, but also...embarrassing. It was embarrassing in a way that Lena couldn’t stop blushing at the thought, but she really didn’t wanna fuck this up either. It’d been weeks, and she had gotten a bit better at trying to kiss another person. It wouldn’t mean jack shit if she had nobody to kiss, however.

Occasionally, she’d check on her phone just to make sure Amélie didn’t send a surprise message to her to make sure she was sleeping. Truthfully, Miss Lacroix already went to sleep 2 hours ago, and Lena was just laying in bed, feeling a bit bugged that the night was going too damn slow.

This was best not thought out late at night, after all. Tomorrow was still a Monday. With that in mind, Lena eventually drifted off to sleep, now hoping (at least) for a good Monday to start off her week.

* * *

Despite getting about 6 or 7 hours in for sleep, Lena was still quite energetic and ready for today. She got dressed and prepared herself to get out and go to their meeting place, just before going to Amélie’s apartment.

She skipped breakfast, mainly because she didn’t feel all that hungry now, and because she was just too damn excited to fill up on anything.

The Brit made it out of her own dormitory, bumping into some other kids who were just getting up to do their own thing for the morning. Upon exiting out, she had taken notice that the skies were fairly cloudy, as if rain was imminent within the hour. Hopefully, this wouldn’t have made much change in plans for today. Since their meeting point was an on-campus park not too far away, she hoped she wasn’t too early.

When Lena made it to the spot, she was pleasantly surprised to see Amélie already up. It was insane to think that anybody would really have to be here that early in the morning, but...it just happened.

Funnily enough, Professor Lacroix was dressed in a way that many people would’ve thought she was teaching class still, and not as a regular student of the university itself. Her attention for the most part was focused primarily on the book, but she did notice Lena eventually coming up, and smiled.

“Good morning. It’s rather cloudy today, don’t you think?”

The student nodded, and took a seat down next to Amélie. “Hope it doesn’t rain.”

“Well, I suppose if it does, we’ll relocate somewhere more cozy. Now,” Amélie put the book away in her purse and crossed her legs. Her signature warm smile came up. “How about we start off your side of the story, like we promised a few weeks ago? How are you liking Paris?”

“Better than I imagined it, that’s for sure!” Lena replied back, smiling just the same. “It’s a lot better with you here, too…” She mumbled on that last part, and of course Amélie caught it, but never really asked what her student really said.

“And what about Hana?”

Lena raised an eyebrow, taking a moment to peek at her phone. The past couple of days, she didn’t even touch her text messages out of the sheer anxiety she might’ve gotten yelled at for trying to defend Miss Lacroix’s actions at the café. Suffice to say, at least 400 new messages popped up that Lena wasn’t willing to scroll through.

Her professor tilted her head, peering over to see if there was any hint or indication that Hana was alright. Lena in return showed her the endless texts by scrolling up.

“Not looking through that, but I think she’s okay.”

A chuckle was heard, then Professor Lacroix uncrossed her legs. “Good. I had a minor worry I might’ve broken her heart.”

“You’re worried? Last I checked she was having an existential crisis after you sent that!”

Amélie just chuckled, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Come on. She had it coming.”

“I still can’t believe her best insult to you was ‘dry baguette’. A soggy baguette would’ve made more sense.”

A few droplets of rain touched both of the girls’ scalps, but Amélie was the first to react to it by looking up. Her glasses got wet from an extra drop touching down on its surface, causing the professor to flinch and close her eyes.

“Okay...it is actually going to rain, then. Perhaps we could retreat to my house?”

_ Her...her place? Could it be?! _

Lena nervously swallowed, and had only a nod to indicate her feelings in that very moment.

_ I’m gonna fucking die if I think this is where I think it’s going.  _

_ Correction: I’m already dead. I just never caught up. Way to go, Lena. _

“Well, no time to waste. Let’s go.” Amélie began to stand up, taking her purse with her. She walked towards her own place, as Lena took a moment to calm herself down for this. While she was in tow, she placed her hoodie on top of her head in the event it’d rain before they arrived. Being a bit foolish, unfortunately, Amélie brought nothing.

Today was the day to be brave, and for once to not break into a gay puddle all over again. Lena would have to try, at the very least.

* * *

Given that Amélie’s place was farther away in the more private areas of campus, the rain had already come by the time they had reached it. Thus, the two of them inevitably got soaked, with Amélie immediately regretting not getting an umbrella despite previous warnings that a storm would come. With a ring and about six different keys on the keyring, Miss Lacroix shuffled around them searching for the right one, and then opened up the door, rushing inside to avoid getting soaked entirely.

Amélie quickly ran to the nearest bathroom, almost ignoring the fact she was gonna get the floor unnecessarily wet as well. Though it wasn’t noticeable at first, the professor was wearing a bit of make-up that had the misfortune of washing away in the rain. Whatever was left had smeared her face, leaving visible black trails running down from her eyes.

Lena in the meanwhile found a comfortable chair to sit in whilst waiting for her professor to get back over here. While she was waiting, she had managed to take a look around The apartment was rather homely, with a contemporary mixture of assorted furniture ranging from blues, purples, and blacks, with the occasional interesting color choice of white and red.

The sounds of water, both from the nearby bathroom and the gentle pitter-patter of the rain tapping on the roof was the only thing heard. The storm had intensified within seconds of them getting inside the house, with simple pitter-patters from earlier turning into loud - yet delicate - drops on the roof.

Minutes would pass until Amélie finally emerged out of the bathroom, breathing a sigh of relief while drying her face off with a towel. She was more than ready to get changed into something a lot more comfortable.

“Nice place ya got.” Lena shifted around in her little comfortable chair, softly smiling. “Everythin’ alright?”

There was a nod, and Amélie sniffled, throwing her towel into her washing machine in another room. “I’m good. I think I’ll go change, though. If you’re hungry, food’s in the fridge.”

“Is Miss Guillard going to come downstairs, then?”

Amélie began ascending up to the stairs, though her voice was shouting towards her student. “If that’s how you see it, sure!”

Things went silent again, though Lena was feeling a bit peckish. Having absolutely nothing for breakfast turned out to be a bad idea for her. Though...if she was here for the reason Professor Lacroix stated in the café, she’d probably have a bit of a hard time downing food without feeling butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

That thought made her blush and softly bite on her index finger. She’d be a fool if she claimed this wasn’t something she wanted for the past few weeks. Once again, Lena squeaked and felt hot and bothered by it all. Only this time however, most of that useless lesbianing from previous meetings was, more or less, gonna assist her rather than be detrimental to her.

_ Now’s a good time to review that guide again, Oxton! _ Her mind had said to her.  _ Impress your professor! She  _ wants _ you to be as gay as possible! _

A brilliant idea, if Lena ever thought about it. She just wanted to make sure her professor loved her in both the academic and romantic type of way.

Footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs, as Amélie was now dressed in what looked like sleepwear. She had a baggy pair of blue-flannel pants and a grey t-shirt on. And, like their first café date, her hair was down.

“So,” Her professor began, now swinging around to take a seat on the big couch, “we’re gonna be here a while.” With two claps from her hands, the lights in the main living room came on, and dimmed to a more reasonable level. “Rain’s not stopping.”

Essentially, the rain had just trapped them together. Perfect.

Or, not really. Lena was still nervous as fuck this was happening, but...it was happening.

Amélie beckoned Lena to join her on the couch, rather than be separated individually. She had scooted over some, creating some space between them, and patted one of the seats. “Don’t be mean. C’mere!”

Nervously, Lena went to the couch as she was told to do, feeling more relaxed compared to every other previous meeting. She licked her lips a little, then bit her lower lip. “Okay.”

This had pleased Amélie, as she smiled and got comfortable on the couch. “Okay...did you join the Erasmus Programme?”

“Sure did! Think I got lucky, too, getting a whole year here in comparison to two or three months for most places.”

“I think I’ve heard that happen once or twice.”

All that really meant was more time between the two of them, and Amélie knew that. She leaned her head in towards Lena and puckered up her lips. “Just means more time to be gay for me, _ isn’t it? _ ” Her tone was teasing, and even Lena couldn’t help but laugh along.

“Y-yeah, sure! Definitely! Lotsa time for me!”

And that was the Lena that Amélie loved teasing. She enjoyed making her babble, since it was the cutest thing she’d see in her day.

Then, they both stayed silent as the rain continued on. Amélie proceeded to lay herself down, sighing. “I really hope my parents don’t find me here.”

“With me?”

Amélie gazed over towards Lena, extending out a hand for her to join her in laying down. Feeling that her hoodie still might be wet, Lena had taken it off. When she went down and got comfortable, she felt a warm presence wrap around her neck.

“No. Well, yes, but...after I left they told me if they ever found out about me in the future, it’s likely they’ll disown me.”

The student didn’t know how to respond to that. She just nodded, and nervously swallowed. She did, however, lean in and give a quick peck on the cheek to her professor.

“You’ll always have me, y’know.”

Amélie softly grinned, turning her head towards Lena. “And what would your parents say if they found out about me?”

Lena grinned as well, her eyes avoiding any contact with her professor’s. “W-well...if they ever found out I love my professor…”

“I’m a grad student, too. Remember that.”

Her student blinked a few times, slightly confused. After some searching, only now did she remember that the person before her was still  _ only _ 26 years old. True enough, Miss Lacroix did reveal she was still a student on this campus despite her initial outward appearance. There, she just nodded. 

“Right, but...still! I wouldn’t know. They’d freak out, probably.”

“Or, they accept it because it’s your choice.”

True enough, Lena’s parents did support her on a lot of ideas, especially those made by herself. Maybe Amélie would be right.

She didn’t have time to think about it, since the next few moments became a bit of a blur. Amélie had rolled over so she was now facing Lena on her right. “You said something about being a better kisser than you were weeks ago.”

“I might’ve.”

Smugly, Amélie rose up out of the couch and sat back, holding onto Lena, who in turn rose up and...ended up straddling her professor. “Give it here.”

With anticipation, Lena gradually leaned in, taking a few deep breaths. Subconsciously, her hands moved by themselves towards locking onto the nape of Amélie’s neck.

_ She wants it. Do it. _

Her mind was racing, and her toes curled up, before she delivered a lasting kiss, deep and enamoring. It felt so good to press her lips against somebody she loved and cared for, and even more so when they thought the same about her.

Then she pulled back, and that look of swooning emerged from Lena’s expressions. Her eyes were half-lidded, and a little smile encapsulated her feeling of bliss.

Much to Lena’s surprise, Amélie smirked, and tilted her head to the side after. “Not bad for your second time. But,” Her smirk turned into a little grin. “I could teach you to be better, like I promised.”

“And after...could we do something else? Watch a movie, get some stuff to eat?”

Innocent as always, but just the way Amélie loved it. She nodded, and let Lena have more breathing room. In return, her student just smiled on, and they just kept...kissing.

After all, with all the rain outside, where else could they go?


	9. Our First Sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena and Amélie spend all day at the apartment fondly growing more intimate and more comfortable with each other. Amélie, however, begins to have second thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to fellow Widowtracer artist, robohero. Thank you for creating all the soft and precious fan art and all of the spicy implications that come with your comics!

_Pitter-patter, pitter-patter._ Being trapped inside somebody’s place because of all that rain didn’t seem like a bad idea if that place was the home of your crush, and it didn’t seem to be letting up. Lena had been tasked with making whatever type of meal she wanted, so long as it was appetizing.

In the two hours that passed prior, the two of them had just been practicing...kissing. Just kissing, really. It made Lena’s little gay heart flutter every now and then, and the novelty was still quite fresh even though they made out quite a few times. Still, that sensation of being embarrassed by her professor slowly became a bit less intense. It was still there, just not as much anymore.

It was the afternoon by the time they had finished that private session. The both of them had somehow skipped out on breakfast, but were quite eager for something to hold them until dinner. It felt liberating to be comfortable around someone she loved, and even more so that she was allowed to be this intimate and this personal. While Lena was busy in the kitchen, Amélie lounged about just casually, closing her eyes and curling herself up on the couch. On the first day of their break, she woke up early because of course she did. Truly, if the rain wouldn’t let up, they’d probably be fucking stuck here all night.

That’d be alright, at least. Amélie wouldn’t mind having someone stay over, so long as they were all the more fun to play with. But, that would also mean she’d have to be extra careful. For one, she’d not have a degree and would probably get fired or dropped. For another, it’d be really fucking bad if someone found out who she really was.

It was the fun part, really. Nobody would have to know jack shit about this relationship. Nobody would have to know they were romantically involved. No strings attached. No one had to know about their little game.

The distinct sensation of an article of clothing fell down upon Amélie’s stomach, causing her to awaken out of her serenity. On her body laid Lena’s sky blue hoodie, and for a brief moment, Amélie thought about hanging this up.

Funny enough, she wanted to try it at the same time. It was always so oversized for such a small person. Amélie had always seen Lena wear this; it almost seemed like this hoodie and Lena were inseparable at times. Maybe, just maybe, she’d wear it just to see what it was about this hoodie being so important.

Over in the kitchen, the food was nowhere to be done, considering even Lena couldn’t remember how in the hell she made this...thing. A ‘chip baguette’, she coined. It was out of boredom one day that she tried making something new, and this was the best she came up with. In truth, she’d probably be embarrassed as all hell presenting this. As with everything that was cheesy, Lena had worn an apron that was hanging on a nearby rack. On it, the words _‘À la vie, à la Mode’_ were embroidered in cursive.

For a brief moment, she took the time to check back on Amélie. Though it was only a few seconds, a light smirk ran across Lena’s lips, and a soft blush flushed her cheeks nevertheless. She didn’t get to view much other than her professor clinging onto her hoodie, and that was that. She casually laughed at her ordeal. It was so strange that merely stealing a glance was already working her up, even though it shouldn’t be right now.  

_Dammit, Oxton! Get back to work! Be gay later!_

With the first unusual sandwich of potato wedges drenched in ketchup and smushed in-between two evenly cut baguettes done, Lena began focusing on making a secondary one. However, she found it hard to concentrate, all because of one quick look at somebody she had a crush on.

Just then, however, she felt the warm presence of hands locking themselves between her waist, and a soft voice whispering into her ear. “Must you keep me waiting?” A delicate pull away from the cutting board had forced Lena to let go of her knife. “Don’t you know it’s rude to keep a girl waiting?”

By then she was just blushing even harder, more out of shame than of being teased. Amélie peered over Lena’s shoulder and noticed the baguette over by a finished up plate. The look of confusion, to put it delicately, encapsulated Amélie’s expressions with her head angled to the left. “What did you do to that poor baguette?”

Lena just nervously snickered, now more embarrassed. “Uhh, I made a butty.”

Then, she looked down towards Amélie’s arms, and noticed that her blue hoodie was being worn. Her eyes widened, and immediately Lena backed out and almost tripped over herself. “Y-y-y-you’re wearing my hoodie!”

Amélie just rolled her eyes, lightly smiling before shrugging. “It’s comfortable. A bit oversized for you, but...for me?” She hummed, and delicately tugged at the seams. “About the right fit. Think I’ll keep it for now.”

“But I need that back! It’s my lucky hoodie!”

“Shhh. If you want it so bad, take it off of me.” Amélie had said with an impish smirk on her lips. “Elsewise, you tell me what this is.” The professor’s attention then reverted back to the baguette on the plate moments after, and she lifted it up, giving it a quick examination. “If this were any other bread I’d probably eat it.” Amélie sat the sandwich back down. “Even I have standards.”

In that moment, Lena calmed herself down and raised her index finger. “...I beg to differ.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re interested in me! As in me, the useless gay. You _have_ no standards!”

Amélie wanted to protest, evident in that she opened up her mouth, left it hanging, and then closed it. She lightly facepalmed herself before snickering some. “ _Touché._ Still though, I’m not eating that.”

Lena had taken the plate with her own hands, and then held up the baguette close to Amélie’s face. “Don’t knock it ‘til ya try it.”

In response, Professor Lacroix backed away slightly. “N-No. Thank you.”

“C’monnnnn! I made it with my heart.”

Amélie lightly exhaled, crossing her arms. “Must you really?” There was just a simple nod from Lena, and Amélie rolled her eyes. “ _Je ne peux pas croire que je fais ça._ ”

Her hands reached out for the baguette and the platter it was served on. She reluctantly stared at it, then shifted her eyes towards her student, who was patiently waiting for a response. Without thinking on it too much, Amélie bit into a portion of it and slowly chewed.

It was alright. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world Miss Lacroix ever had her tongue slide in, but it certainly wasn’t the best. Oddly enough, it was appealing in a sense that this came from Lena, and not somebody else. Once again without thinking on it too much, Amélie simply took another bite.

She didn’t have to say anything, and Lena ended up biting her lower lip before turning back to get a her own fair share of the chip baguette, and things became a bit more relaxed once Amélie kept herself occupied with some food.

In the quiet moments that passed, Lena had let out a gentle bit of laughter as she finished up cutting the second baguette in half. “Bit funny, isn’t it?”

“Hmm?” Amélie swallowed some bits of her sandwich and raised an eyebrow. “What’s funny?”

“This predicament we’re in.” Her student replied, setting down the knife and wiping her hands on the apron. Lena leaned back on the kitchen counter and used her arms for support. “Stuck in here all ‘cause of the rain, and now we can’t keep our hands off each other.”

“It wasn’t my choice that it’d be raining this heavily. And besides,” Amélie pointed out towards the door. “Umbrella’s there and you’re always welcome to leave.”

Oh, but Lena didn’t want to. She merely passed on that opportunity, chuckling to herself. Of course she had the option to, she just wouldn’t wanna take it. She’d have rather spent all the time bonding instead of doing arbitrary homework.

Speaking of the rain, however, it did give Lena a brilliant way to pass the time. She had taken the apron off, for she no longer needed it, and placed it back on its rack. After she made her own baguette and finished it off in a jiff, Amélie had cracked open up a book and quietly read for a few minutes, seeing as how there wasn’t much they could do together outside.

Miss Lacroix felt a gentle finger prod her cheek, and she glanced upwards to find Lena looming over her. “ _Oui?_ Did you need something?”

Lena just grinned playfully. “Wanna go out in the rain?”

For a moment, Amélie left her mouth open, as if she wanted to say something. Instead, she softly giggled and looked outside. “You’re joking. You _want_ to go outside right now?”

There wasn’t any hesitation from her student, she just nodded confidently and kept up that smile of hers. It was better than being inside all damned day, at any rate, right? Why not take advantage of it?

On the other hand, Amélie was on the fence about it. She hummed and merely observed the copious amounts of rain falling down, occasionally diverting her attention back to Lena every now and then. “I don’t know, you’d get sick. Maybe I would, too. Are you for certain?”

Once again, Lena just nodded. “Yeah! Definitely!”

Well, for once, the self-proclaimed ‘useless gay’ wouldn’t back out of this one. Amélie was still reluctant, but it wouldn’t take long before Lena began dragging her out of her comfortable seat after she had set the book down, along with taking off Lena’s hoodie. Though mild, Amélie did try protesting just to tease her student. “But I don’t wanna get wet outside!”

“Too bad! Gettin’ ya out there!” By then, Lena had already opened up the door and dragged her outside. A bit of rain had splashed inside, but it didn’t matter all that much to either of them. As the door closed, Lena made her way out in the rain and felt all the cold droplets touch her skin. In that moment, a wide grin laid across her lips as she beckoned Amélie to come.

Cautiously, Amélie stepped out of the protection of cover and into the rain. She lightly squeaked, as she was not used to getting soaked before, especially in her own clothes. Seeing as she was being a bit over-cautious, Lena gathered up a bit of rain and immediately splashed her professor with it.

This, of course, made her squeak even louder. “Lena!!” She would yell out against the rain, covering herself just in the event her student would do anything else.

Lena ended up cracking herself up at the sight, fist-pumping the air, and then kicked up a puddle to further soak Amélie. “Gotcha!”

Raising an eyebrow, Miss Lacroix chuckled and proceeded to do the same, catching Lena off-guard. This was so childish, but it felt so strangely relaxing to do. When her student took a moment to gather herself, only then did Amélie try and make a run for it somewhere else. When she ran, she never felt more free in her life to do something stupidly fun.

And so they chased each other around the campus housing areas, though they didn’t stray too far away from Amélie’s apartment. For those who were curious, they were just two grown people acting like kids out in the rain. Even if they were watched, it didn’t matter to the both of them that they were.

In this moment of time, nothing else seemed _to_ matter, especially to the professor. She didn’t care she might fall ill standing out this long in the rain. She didn’t care that her clothes were getting soaked, or whether or not anybody would even bother telling them to use common fucking sense and get back inside. What mattered right now to her was just some quality time together with someone...someone she was playing an extended game of love with.

The two would try and find the biggest puddles of water on the ground to splash each other with, then run away all giddy thinking they’d get away with it. Back and forth they went, and it’d go on for almost half an hour until Lena slipped and fell into Amélie’s arms. They both fell down into the rain, laughing hard before getting back up.

“I think it might be time we get back in!” Amélie spoke loudly, standing up and wiping away a bit of soil from her chin and clothes. Lena would agree by nodding, but only after making a final strike of water with her feet, to which Amélie shielded with her hands. “Okay, okay! Stop! I concede!”

Heartily, her student laughed and nodded again. “Okay! You go first!”

* * *

The door closed behind Amélie once she was inside with Lena. She took a long and deep sigh before smacking her lips. “Wouldn’t surprise me if we get sick. But hey, we’d be sick together.”

“Good clean shower might have something to say ‘bout that, yeah?” Lena actively began checking around, looking for anything to wipe herself dry with for the moment. For sure now, the floor would just be wet from their endeavors outside. It was fun, nevertheless, and it was perhaps the most fun Amélie had with anybody in a long while. She had a soft smile on her face and eyes that trailed Lena over to the kitchen, where she ended up twisting the lower part of her t-shirt to release excess water out.

A sudden realization then smacked her student across the face. “Ohh...dammit. Fuck!” Lena cursed, then laughed at herself. “Not smart. Not smart at all.”

“Something the matter, _mon amie?_ ”

“D’you mind if I...borrow some clothes?”

She blinked a few times, unsure of what that question was even for. Then, she realized that Lena never actually brought any spare clothes and she never lived here. Funnily enough for some odd reason, Amélie thought the opposite. Maybe this girl was starting to get in her head, as if she really was a part of her daily life now. The professor pointed up to the set of stairs. “Go to my room. You’re welcome to anything you find comfortable.”

With an assured nod, Lena made her way upstairs, leaving behind a bit of a wet trail of footprints all the way up. While that went on, Amélie wiped herself off with one of the dry towels, which quickly became soaking as well. Though it felt like several minutes had passed before they went in, it was already close to sunset...without any sun actually setting above all those clouds. All that energy exerted outside playing in the rain ended up making her go hungry again, as was indicated by a little stomach growl. Amélie began to check what was in the fridge mostly to find large quantities of cheeses, leftover vegetables she wanted to use for noodles, and mish-mashes of other random bits. Not much of a dinner was inside that fridge, but Amélie certainly could make do.

The professor inevitably went upstairs into the bathroom, snatching away Lena’s old and wet clothes. A little late night washing wouldn’t do anybody any harm; after all, this was just being generous and it was preparing ahead of time. Before she left, though, Amélie shifted herself around just so she was facing Lena in the shower. “Would you be interested for a simple dinner tonight? I was thinking fondue.”

“Sounds better than what I’d make.”

“Oh, don’t put yourself down too much. I liked that chip baguette.”

A light chuckle was heard from over in the shower area, and Lena peeked outside one of the shower curtain sides. Her messy hair flopped all the way down to something that obscured her otherwise beautiful almond colored eyes, but she brushed those bangs away for now. “I’d like some fondue. Yeah. It’ll be nice an’ warm in comparison to what we did outside.”

“As you wish, Miss Oxton.” Amélie smirked, then looked towards the door.

Before she could depart on her way to making their makeshift dinner, Lena called out. “Wait! Professor!”

Amélie walked a bit backwards and diverted her attention back to Lena. “Mmh?”

Her eyes wandered a little as the student bit her lower lip again, brushing away her bangs out of her face once more. “I was thinking just a bit.”

“That’s dangerous, you know.” Amélie quickly remarked, before smacking her lips. “What were you thinking about?”

“Your ancestral home. Could we...visit it? Maybe some day?”

The professor went silent for a bit. She hadn’t been back to that place in a while, but undoubtedly she was always welcome to come back whenever she wanted. Her parents never gave a damn, since it wasn’t their preferred house to stay in, anyway. But it was still risky given if they were found out, shit would go south.

She just nodded. Subconsciously, Amélie nodded. Fuck the risks, she thought. She was a Guillard, first and foremost, and Guillards feared nothing. “Sure. I might need to figure things out, but we can.”

“Aces!” Lena said, before closing back the curtain.

This left Amélie on her own for now. She exited out the room as initially intended, carrying with her the set of clothing Lena was wearing most of the day today. She merely put them into the washer and added some fabric softener and got out other laundry goods, setting them atop the dryer for now.

It was a rather odd question asking if they could ever visit the Château, especially when Amélie hadn’t even remembered the last time she ever went back to Annecy. Some fond memories began leaking into her train of thought, but now wasn’t the time to be nostalgic. Rather, she merely smiled and kept moving on.

All of the spare clothes Amélie had in her closet ended up being blatantly oversized. Lena had stepped out of the bathroom thinking that somehow, this gift kept on goddamn giving. Oversized black shirt? Check. Oversized flannel pants? Also check. If she hadn’t rolled up those pajama pants, Lena would’ve likely tripped over them descending down the stairs. For what it was worth, Amélie’s legs looked nowhere near as long as these pants implied.

Back downstairs, Miss Lacroix had finished up their little dinner for the night. It was something fairly simple; a large pot containing cheese fondue and bowls of assorted vegetables, potato crisps, and a bunch of other morsels to dip into cheese.

As she was moving bowls of food back towards the coffee table, she casually snuck in a quick peek over towards her student, lightly snickering and grinning. “Comfortable?”

“It’s a little big, this shirt.”

“ _Aww,_ but you look cuter that way.” Amélie chuckled, then set down her pot of fondue on the coffee table. “Take the rest of the bowls and enjoy yourself. I loaded up one of my favorite movies, too.”

Much to the student’s surprise, there was a movie menu playing in the background. The sound at the moment was muted, or at least turned down to nothing, but it looked to be an animated film of sorts. But what was it called?

That question didn’t get responded because Amélie - much like a cat - had silently moved upstairs while Lena was distracted.

Her stomach grumbled for food as Lena went over to the kitchen and picked up a bowl of potato chips to dip into the cheese. It wasn’t much, but it seemed enough just for the two of them to consume down to the very last droplet of gooey goodness.

But she felt a bit selfish if she got first pick on all the good stuff. Instead, Lena ended up choosing eating some bits of the vegetables first. She dipped a modest piece of broccoli into the vat of cheese, and then took a careful bite out of it to make sure none of it dripped on the floor.

With her first bite, Lena spotted the case for the movie that Amélie intended to play. The title of this film was _‘Déjà Vu’_ , and some rather colorful characters were on the front cover: A young and chipper looking woman that looked like her - even down to the color of her hair and how it was styled - wearing an orange tracksuit stood opposite to a much taller looking woman dressed in a purple catsuit and a freaky looking helmet, just at a first glance.

She flipped the case around to the back, revealing some screens of the film and a plot summary. Apparently, the girl that looked so much like her was named Cara and she was a British agent of sorts working for some arbitrary military organization on protecting an important politician. That seemed interesting and all, but somehow this movie was listed as a romantic comedy according to the internet, as Lena looked up using her phone. Maybe it was the wrong film, or some strange misprint. But who knows. She was quite curious however, as her hand hovered over the remote moments later. Then she pressed the play button.

The washing machine beeped minutes later with Amélie coming downstairs shortly after. She was  lightly humming a musical tune that trailed off elsewhere as she made her way over towards the laundry. Without thinking about anything else, the professor stuffed the set of clothes into the dryer, set it to her usual settings, and proceeded to go find her way over to the couch.

Lena was already munching on some pretzels in another bowl by the time she came over. Judging by how far the movie was, Lena had already witnessed La Fatale’s transition into becoming a French spy, and the mishap of La Fatale and Cara meeting each other one fateful night. They didn’t say anything to each other for now. Instead, they just quickly glanced at each other and giggled every now and then.

Fondue was fon-done by the time they reached the point where the movie picked up its pace. Crumpled up balls of napkins were littered on the plates, and the pot of cheese was mostly empty.

And also every now and then, the both of them would sneakily move closer and closer to each other as if either of them never noticed a thing. It was not until Amélie was able to wrap her arm around Lena’s shoulder did they remotely say anything.

“How long is this?” Her student politely asked.

“Give or take? Four hours.”

A look of shock came across Lena’s face. Four...four fucking _hours_?! What kind of romantic comedy would last _for four hours_?!

“Oh, don’t look shocked, it’s very good if you’ve the patience and fondness for a good laugh!” Her professor then crept in and whispered into her ear. _“C'est pourquoi je te taquine jusqu'à ce que tu te tortilles."_

Just when Lena got comfortable being around her professor, this happens. She nervously blushed and laughed along, but internally she felt like screaming. The torment never ends.

“But we don’t have to finish it all tonight if you’re tired.” Amélie spoke calmly, holding onto her student’s soft hands.

“N-No! I’m gonna be determined, just you watch!” She huffed, getting a surge of determination to finish this movie by tonight. They watched on, with Lena nestling into Amélie as the movie progressed on, having finished the fondue several minutes earlier. Things got silent, for the two were focused primarily on the action at hand. Lena quickly became encapsulated and felt a general sense of relatability when it came down to watching Cara on screen. Maybe it was because they were both British, or, ironically, they both looked pretty similar.

Around some halfway mark through the movie, Lena scooted herself out of her professor and gazed over at her. “Could we get some blankets and pillows? I wanna get really comfortable.”

With a hum, Amélie stood up and grabbed all the plates and the fondue pot off of the table and into the sink. She’d let them soak overnight, since she didn’t really feel like cleaning up the gunk inside everything. Then, she headed upstairs to go fetch some pillows and a warm blanket.

Truthfully, Lena was tired, but she didn’t want her professor to know. Quite frankly, the rain might’ve took a lot more out of her than she initially thought. She felt a bit cold - hence the blanket - and her mind fogged up a little as the night went on.

The professor came downstairs for the last time, with about three pillows in one hand and a pretty large blanket dragging on the floor in the other. She sat down, and made sure that the blanket covered up most of the couch they were sitting in. Lena wrapped herself up around it and immediately went to go cuddle with Amélie. “Thanks, luv.”

“Anything for you, ma chérie.” The professor whispered back, getting herself comfortable by placing a pillow behind herself and pulling up parts of the blanket up to cover herself.

It wouldn’t take long before Lena softly moaned and closed her eyes for a bit. Amélie took notice, of course, and lightly prodded her student’s shoulder. “You’re drifting off already?”

“No...no. Lemme just...rest my eyes a bit…”

She didn’t protest, and just watched on for a bit. After a couple more minutes however, Amélie checked up on her little exchange student, just shaking her. No response, as was expected. She chuckled, and hummed. “Good night, my sweet.”

* * *

The night ended shortly after. Lena had quietly gone to sleep in the middle of their own flick despite protests that she could stay up until the end, so rather than finish it all by herself, Amélie simply paused it just before Cara and La Fatale ended up kissing each other. The student was curled up comfortably snoozing away within Amélie’s clutches on the couch. At long last, not like it mattered all that much, the rain gradually became more settled, and eventually it became nothing more than light drizzle. Hell, neither of them even noticed that.

Though the professor was feeling a bit sleepy herself, she thought about all of the possibilities they could do at Château Guillard, should that day ever come. It was an interesting idea, of course, and she yearned to go back there, just as an escape from Paris. A peaceful day at the lake together sounded nice and calming, as did staying inside within the safety of the castle walls all to enjoy a hot cup of cocoa. Or, maybe, taking in the cool autumn breezes next to a bench with a view that overlooked the city.

She wanted Lena to see the world she was living in at a younger age, even if it was just a small taste of her life. She felt the desire of having her student experience the finer things in life like she once did, because she thought Lena was worth it for that. A few hours drive to Annecy didn’t sound like a bad idea at all, especially when the two of them didn’t have anything important to do that couldn’t be done the next day, or the day after that. Hell, if she was a fast enough thinker, they’d probably go to the Château within this week. Plus, the weather was more than optimal for a stroll out in the open air.  At least over in Annecy it wouldn’t rain like a motherfucker all day unless it was a rare occasion.

Much like her thoughts from an earlier time today, Amélie sought much pleasure within this game she was playing with Lena. To her, it was just a game that was ridiculously fun, filled with all sorts of things to tease her with every step of the way. But, again, she knew this would end. And she’d hate for it to end. They’d come sooner than she’d know it.

As she lingered onto that thought, Amélie became just a bit aware of what her situation was, and the seriousness of it all. With only a year - or maybe even less, if the Erasmus programme wasn’t sure Lena was getting the right and proper education over here - it wouldn’t be enough for anything significant. Her student was making the correct turnaround in her grades, and from what she saw in Lena’s track record, she rarely missed classes and did enough to pass and please her instructors.

But if they ever found out that Amélie was incentivizing romance for grades...well...

She became too tired to think about anything else.Her thoughts were to be saved for another time when her conscience was clear. As she laid her head down, she triple checked and made sure not to awaken her student, who promptly adjusted just the same. Amélie pulled up the extra set of blankets, turned off the dimmed lights with a quick snap of her fingers, and closed her eyes.

A game...it was _just_ a game, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone.
> 
> I know that this chapter is significantly later than most, and it was not because of its length (this is the longest chapter of the fic yet!). I must sincerely apologize to you all for being late on it. Without going into too much details, all you should know is that I have been dealing with a lot of negativity and it impeded on this chapter, like, a lot. I've been seeking professional help as well as surrounding myself with those I care about the most. Those I don't talk to, well...your loss for not bothering about me.
> 
> Again, I apologize. I didn't mean for it to take this long. I just...needed to clear myself of some things. And I am so grateful people are patient with me.
> 
> No, this fic didn't go on a hiatus. It's just a mental wall I wanted to get past first.
> 
> So thank you, if you're reading this. Thank you so much for being patient with me.
> 
> P.S. I've also been steadily working towards more story-oriented and serious fics, so be on the lookout for those in the future.


	10. Morning Coffee Gone Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena gets a bit worse for wear, but Amélie comes to the rescue.

“I have to go.”

The voice of Lena had spoke that to Amélie, and it was the Cockney accent that gave it away. The professor had been lost in her own free-falling dreams, catching phrases here and there from various points in her life. Some were real, but for the most part, none of it really was. She couldn’t cling onto the voices, nor could she get a sense of what was happening. No sooner would she wake up, with those words ringing in her head. _‘I have to go.’_

She had opened up her eyes gradually, turning her head to take a notice that the morning had come. Upon moving a muscle though, the professor had a sensation of falling once more just as a body response to make sure she was alive. Amélie felt a bit stiff from not moving at all since last night, what with keeping Lena still and the like. But the most glaring difference she felt was that her student was not nestling in onto her upper chest area, nor was she accidentally on the floor.

A light wave of panic fluttered within her heart. She flung off the blankets on her and, to nobody’s surprise, Lena wasn’t there. Amélie rose up out of her respite and rapidly began looking around. “Lena?”

Nobody responded back. The sound merely reverberated around the walls. One thing to notice however, was that her student’s signature hoodie was still neatly placed where she had left it last night. Minus the clothes she had worn and washed, Lena wouldn’t leave her hoodie here for any reason whatsoever.

In fact she probably wouldn’t have even left without warning. Amélie ran to go check her phone from upstairs, only to find that there were no messages left for her. There was a few missed calls, mostly by cold calls that led nowhere, and the last one being from Gérard.

Nothing from Lena had made her heart clench up. She hadn’t felt this sensation _at all_ ever since she and her student were unofficially...together? No, not really together. Just keeping each other company in a way, anyhow. Another wave of panic spread across Amélie’s being as she frantically made her way back downstairs, almost tripping over herself in the process.

She wanted to call Lena, or maybe text her. At this rate she was getting antsy over something unannounced, and, really, she couldn’t control herself. Initially, Amélie immediately began speed-dialing up her student’s number. She paced around her living room, hearing only buzzing noises. After the fourth or so buzz, she had given up and immediately went to go text Lena.

Rapidly, her fingers tapped on all the letters needed to from ‘Where are you?’ into the text box. She stopped almost as she was about to hit the ‘send’ button. Amélie shook her head, letting her hair flow around with stray locks covering up her vision. She took a deep breath, and eased up a little bit.

_Just what are you doing, Guillard? Why do you worry for this little girl so much today? She’s fine. She’s probably out getting more clothes or homework from her dorm. Lay off._

Her thumb proceeded to hover over the delete button on the keyboard, and the professor promptly cleared up the message. With a few deep breaths, the phone was then out of her hands and placed on the kitchen counter.

There’s nothing to get worried about. After all, Lena was an adult. She was responsible - though not really when she’s around her professor - but still. She could take care of herself. Her fingers ran through her own hair, and then Amélie just lightly chuckled.

_No worries. No worries at all. Just don’t worry._

It wasn’t too early in the morning per se, but it was still fairly cloudy from the immense downpour of yesterday. Undoubtedly, it’d clear up as time would pass - maybe even today - but the weather was at least enjoyable. Amélie swirled her tongue around her lips to wet them, and promptly took her last deep breath.

Cleaning the dishes was a priority since last night that she had failed to do, but for good reason. It was something to start off the day while she made her morning coffee and breakfast. With that in mind, she prepared her own personal mix for the time being. All in the while, Amélie put on some latex gloves and tied her her back to the standard ponytail.

* * *

_Clink._ The last dish had been dried off and set back into the cabinets. Coffee had been finished up while Amélie took off her gloves, and she proceeded to grab one of the cups from another cabinet to fill her share of caffeine for the morning. Just as she was hovering her cup over the coffee machine though, a student whom Amélie recognized ran past her house, noticeable through the window she looked out of.

Curious. Nobody should be out running at this hour unless they were a super health nut, and considering that the student that ran past her wasn’t a known person to be physically active, something was up. Still, it wasn’t any of the professor’s business to intrude on that. Now with a fresh cup of coffee in her hand, Amélie fetched herself the jar of sugar cubes she kept, alongside a jug of creamer not too far away.

Alas, she wouldn’t get to have her coffee, for now a familiar face had run past Amélie’s field of view, tumbling downwards from running too fast. Lena remained on the floor for a moment before frantically getting back up, hobbling towards the front entrance of the apartment. The sight had alerted Amélie more than any morning coffee could - and she flinched at what was happening.

Though the doorknob turning could be mildly heard, a more audible yelp followed by footsteps running down the entrance was distinct. The professor peered out of the window outside of the front, and noticed that Lena was pinned down by several of her classmates. One of them proceeded to rip something from Lena’s grasp.

Amélie had a scowl on her face before grabbing the closest pair of slippers she had on. Swinging the door open, the kids bullying Lena seemed to be oblivious to that fact.

“Stop! Lemme go!” Lena had yelled out. “Help! Help!”

“Why were you running from us? We just wanted to know a few things!” responded back her aggressors. They had tried searching whatever got snatched from Lena’s hands, and all in the while Amélie slowly walked over to them.

“ _Merde._ Locked!” One feminine, yet nasally voice cursed, before grabbing a hold of Lena’s arm. “What’s the password?”

“I’m not tellin’ you!” Lena shouted out again, and then looked up. A fairly intimidating presence had been looming over her for a few seconds and then promptly grabbed the other girl student off of her, dropping what looked like Lena’s phone on her student’s stomach.

“ _Hey!_ Just what --” She shut up as soon as she saw that the professor was the one that grabbed her. “P-professor!”

“Yes. Me.” Amélie spoke harshly, then let go of her fellow student. By then, the other group of kids let go of Lena and proceeded to back off nervously. “Just what,” Amélie began picking up Lena off from the ground, “do you think all of you are doing to this girl?”

They all tried starting excuses, but Professor Lacroix wasn’t gonna have any of that shit. She didn’t need to waste a breath, only raising her hand up to silence all of them. With a quick glance at Lena she whispered ‘go inside’, to which her student limped on up the stairs and did so.

“Assaulting a foreign exchange student? Is this how far we’ll go?”

All the kids shook their heads and just remained silent.

“Then why did you do it? What was the purpose?”

Still silence, though it looked like some of them were making up one big, and long excuse as to why.

And Amélie was quickly growing impatient. When it came down for punishment, none of these kids had the gall to take it. She didn’t want to be aggressive, since that wasn’t part of her professionalism at all. She exhaled rather disappointingly and closed her eyes. “You disappoint me.”

“We’re sorry,” one of the more shy kids had spoken up, “we just wanted to know.”

“Know _what?”_ Amélie’s tone turned sharp, though she refrained from raising her voice.

“Why she’s doing good in class while we...weren’t.” Replied back the nasally girl student. “She said we’d have to beat that information out of her.”

And they took it literally. What a bunch of fucking dumb kids. If it weren’t for the circumstances of what just happened, Amélie would’ve probably have laughed at the situation. But it wasn’t a laughing matter; somebody she was responsible for taking care of - not just Lena, but every student attending her class - got hurt on her watch. She couldn’t have known, sure, but it didn’t matter. She witnessed it. Therefore, she was responsible.

Instead, Amélie just said nothing. She shook her head, unsure of what to say. Biting her lower lip, she then changed a headshake to a rather reaffirming nod. “I’m done here. I have no choice but to send this incident to administration for jurisdiction. I may be held accountable, but Lena will be safe. The rest of you will possibly never attend my class again going forward.” It pained her to say that, since she valued each and every student coming to her class each year. It pained her because she never had to cast them out like this. But her mind was made. “I’m going now.”

“Wait!” The kids shouted in unison, but that was the professor’s decision. Before any of the kids could protest, Amélie proceeded to head back in. She was stopped, however, by one of them holding her hand. “Please!”

Without much effort, Amélie snapped her hand back to freedom and glowered at all of them. They should know that this was common sense by now, but hey, they took something figurative literally. Maybe it was too blunt, but it wasn’t Amélie making an angry decision. It was just her getting even.

“If any of you had the common sense to think about perhaps visiting me to improve, we wouldn’t be here. You’re lucky I don’t fail you on the spot and move on, no jurisdiction necessary.” The professor remarked coldly, leaving all of the kids stunned. That was her opportunity to just shut the door in their faces.

* * *

Lena had been resting herself up by the nearby couch from last night and quietly checked her injuries. Aside from the random bits that hurt from her fall down, one black eye, a cut lip, and a really bad sprained ankle was all that she really found. That, some dirty clothes from the mildly wet soil, a lightly cracked phone screen, and maybe some broken pride were the only things Lena got away with.

Emotionally, things were fine. It was a bit scary, sure, but knowing that her professor had her back was a nice feeling. Speaking of, Amélie closed the door right behind her amidst some shouting from the other kids, and heard a deep sigh. “Unbelievable.” Her professor muttered. “And they were good kids, too...”

To prevent the other kids from sneaking a peek, the professor then closed the front window shutters even if it meant losing out on some nice sunlight from the outside. Maybe some finely lit candles would’ve been better, but whatever. In the moment that things were now private, Amélie rushed over to Lena, who had said nothing and merely looked at what she was doing. From there, her professor just stood in front of her, examining her ever so carefully.

“I’m...I’m okay.”

Out of nowhere, Lena felt the arms of her professor tightly holding onto her. She wanted to flinch, since this was a bit unexpected. Reluctantly, the student just accepted it. Even though they’ve gotten far more intimate than this via kissing, this made Lena feel a bit flustered.

It was then Amélie sat down and really began checking Lena for more injuries. The black eye and cut lip gave the professor a sense of worry, on top of having to report the other students outside for misbehavior against a foreign exchange student. Despite it all, Amélie delicately pressed her lips up against Lena’s cheek, and then moved onto her lips, faintly tasting iron from the blood, and then her forehead. Lastly, another hug. Now that, all in the short timespan, took her student by surprise as her heart fluttered.

“...Amélie?” Lena spoke out meekly, having no idea why this side of her professor was being a lot more compassionate with her today. She didn’t do anything different, albeit today’s incident was an unexpected situation she had the shitty misfortune of stumbling across.  “Is everything okay?”

By then, the professor rapidly shook her head and pulled back. She defensively raised her hands up and mildly laughed to herself. “Forgive me. I-I got carried away.”

That was fine. Really, it was. It wasn’t like Lena didn’t enjoy it, but it was particularly strange. She wanted to move around, but her sprained ankle wasn’t gonna get any better just sitting here. A soft groan was all it took for Amélie to remember that she was still injured, and to kick it into gear. “Right. We should get you to the nurse and...perhaps the hospital.”

“I think the nurse is just fine. Not like I broke a bone, yeah?” As if by cue though, her ankle began to ache as if a few bones did break. To the very best of her abilities, Lena tried not to yell out in pain. Pro-tip to self: Never fucking say shit too soon.

“I’ll get some ice and disinfectant. Just relax, okay?” Amélie softly spoke, having a bit of a smile on her face while doing so. She hurried around her house, taking out an ice pack for the black eye and tried finding a clean rag and a cue-tip for the cut lip.

Minutes later, she would return with a bowl of clean water, among other medically-related things. Lastly, she would pull out a small little stool to sit on while she cleaned up Lena’s injuries.

First came the ice-pack, which the professor had handed towards her student. “Keep that over your eye.” The professor had instructed, and Lena did so.

Then came the cleaning of the cut. With the rag from earlier, Amélie delicately dipped it in the bowl of clean water and then lightly dabbed it in the area. It was a rinse-repeat type of thing, and lots of blood inevitably dirtied the bowl of water and the rag. She could only hope that she did a good enough job making sure the wound was clean enough.

“Those kids,” Amélie whispered, “really should’ve thought twice about hurting you.”

“Whash gunna happen tho dem?” Her student replied, having a bit of the rag slur her words. The professor then dipped the rag into water again and stopped, just for a brief moment.

“ _Desolée._ Say again?”

“What’s gonna happen to them?”

Amélie merely exhaled again and shook her head. “Presumably? Forced to leave my classroom, and possibly the campus temporarily, with extra security looking over them for the remainder of their campus life.”

“Ain’t that a bit...y’know? Excessive?”

“Justified.”

“But how? Kicking kids out just for hurting another and ruining their future seems really excessive to me. Like, even back in London people got hurt all the time and --”

The professor put her index finger against her own lips, since Lena’s cut was bleeding again and it was dripping down to her chin. She twisted the rag, draining it of excess water before dabbing it again on the wound and cleaned up the trail of mixed blood-water trickling down. “Excessive, yes. But only if it wasn’t you.”

“Me? Why me? Is this entirely your decision?”

“N-No. Not…’you’ as a person. You as a student. A foreign exchange student.”

At that point, Lena was just confused. She remained silent, considering the fact it looked like Amélie was gonna say something to explain.

“Normally, we don’t get violent acts occurring on campus. If it does, then we deal with it with less of a harsh punishment. Maybe a few days suspension, but nothing that could endanger them.” Amélie explained, multitasking washing the rag, then draining it and dabbing it on the cut. “But since you are part of an exchange program, then it is on us as faculty members to make sure you have nothing but positivity happen here.”

“But what if something negative occurs anyway out of your control?”

“Then we report that to the program as unavoidable, especially if multiple people experience it. Look, Lena,” Amélie sighed as she put the rag back into the bowl of blood-water and clasped her hands together. “What I’m getting at is, you got hurt by other students who are not foreign exchange students, but students who go here natively. If the Erasmus Programme sees that you’ve been hurt, we will likely have to hand you back to London. We have no say on it. Fights are avoidable, therefore we can’t make excuses and soften the blow. And that means I lose you before the year’s up.”

_And I don’t want to lose you, Lena._ That was what Amélie wanted to say, but she’d rather keep it to herself for now.

Amélie’s hands then moved up to support her chin while she shook her head again, rather morosely. “Not to mention that I’d be held accountable and the school’s reputation will be in a spiral if word got out. This University’s record has been spotless for quite some time. I might lose my job, my own reputation, and...you know how I want to succeed in getting my degree here.”

So, yeah. All of this was really serious, even if it was an accident caused by some dipshit students. But even Lena couldn’t grasp at how important she really was to this school and how critical it was she had a good experience here. Maybe it’d be best to be more careful, even now considering the circumstances of this teacher/student relationship.

With all things said and done, Amélie ended up cleaning the cut one last time before getting out a generous amount of cue-tips and alcohol to disinfect Lena’s cut. On the first gentle swab, it had stung the student a bit, but it was to be expected. More or less, the bleeding was significantly less and not endangering.

And that was all she could do to her student, at the very best of her abilities. Nothing could be done within Amélie’s medical expertise to treat Lena’s sprained ankle. Therefore it was probably best that they get moving to the health office a few blocks away from them to treat it. She would find herself dumping the bowl of blood-water down the sink and submerging the bowl in another set of clean water to soak for now alongside the rag. One last thing would be to take Lena’s jacket and give it to her.

Amélie came back to the living room, holding out her student’s jacket for her to wear. “That’s all I can do. I’m going to have to leave you at the doctor for them to sort you out.”

Lena ended up taking the jacket and wore it around her. Naturally, she tried standing up only to almost tumble back down by how bad the pain was in her ankle. If not for Amélie catching her, she’d have likely erased any progress of treatment the professor had done to her.

The door opened up, with the kids from earlier no longer hovering around and having gone their own separate ways a long time ago. Lena was prepared to just hop on one foot the entire way there, but instead she was swept off her own two feet by her professor, who held onto her shoulder and the back of her calves.

“No need to walk. I’ll just carry you there. Sound fair?”

“Not really.”

“Well too bad. I’m never fair.” Amélie teased, sticking her tongue out before chuckling and moving towards the health office.

* * *

Later that day…

Amélie found herself impatiently bouncing her knee up and down with her two arms resting on her lap. She was waiting outside the administration office, having filed the reports on her students from earlier and now she was waiting on a private meeting with the board members to end. Lena had notified her that she was likely to stay in the hospital for two days to get her ankle re-adjusted, but everything would be okay in the end.

That was an hour ago.

But just as Amélie was about to start fuming for the administration to hurry up, the headmaster of the University had stepped out to conclude the end of the meeting. Though old, the headmaster wasn’t to be judged just like a book cover. She was wise beyond her years, and quite lenient with Amélie and how she operates herself.

The professor found herself standing up, patiently waiting for the rest of the faculty to clear out. When things got quiet, only the headmaster and Amélie remained out in the lobby. They merely just glanced at each other, before the headmaster smiled. “A foreign exchange student gets beat up and I’m informed you wish to care for her as a regular person. Today has been very hectic.”

“ _Oui, mademoiselle._ She is my student, and my responsibility. I wish to take care of her moving forward, on top of my other duties as an instructor. Has the board agreed to this?”

There was an affirming nod from the headmaster, who just continued to smile. “We’ll allow it. But,” The old woman’s boney finger began reaching out, pointing towards Amélie’s chest. “be sure that this does not impact your performance as an instructor to this University. Favoritism is frowned upon.”

Without hesitation, Amélie smiled back and nodded. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Significantly delayed due to finals, dealing with some personal issues, and Christmas holidays. I apologize, but it's better late than never.


	11. Visiting Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena returns home with a familiar visitor coming with her.

Recovering from a twisted ankle turned out to be a good enough excuse to take a few days of class off. Though, if anybody asked Lena, she particularly missed going to class. She’d recover without a hindrance to her capabilities of walking or running, but she was advised to be more careful in the future. More than anything though, her professor seemed a lot more attentive to her now than before she got injured. Hell, even before the night they slept together on the couch she felt a deeper sense of intimacy between them.

Her cut on her lip healed up particularly well also; no scarring nor any deformation could be seen, as if a wound never existed at all. By this point, her aggressors in the form of her ex-classmates were actually expelled just a few days later, just as the final few days of Fall Break were upon the campus. It was unusually harsh for what it was worth and what the context was. But at the same time, if this university took Lena being an exchange student legitimately seriously - or all exchange students for that matter - surely the student body would have to even if they were unaware of it.

Useless Lesbian question of the day: Does Amélie _really_ like me, or does she _love_ me?

Those kisses back when the professor was tending to her cut came out of nowhere, but Lena definitely felt something more, even if it was completely unexpected. She just couldn’t stop thinking back to that moment. Those soft lips pressing up against hers, even when it’d be a bit unsafe to kiss someone at the risk of an infection. Maybe logic or common sense didn’t seem to apply at the moment, or maybe she just didn’t think about it.

Whatever the case, those thoughts would have to be put on wait now. The reality was that school needed to come first, now more than ever.

Fall Break almost over already; all the work Lena would have to catch up on started off like a small little mole hill based on how much work she got done in the hospital. Hint: Absolutely fucking nothing at all. By today, it was now a sizeable mountain she’d need to scale. Lena deeply wished she had a longer break so she could see Amélie again, but she knew that things would go back to normal when all of this was said and done.

_Focus on work first. She’d want you to succeed first and be gay second, right? Or was it the other way ‘round?_

Nevertheless, she could just catch up by tomorrow assuming she didn’t get sidetracked into some other nonchalant business. The hospital had already granted her permission to leave starting today. They had even given her crutches near her gurney in the event that she truly did want to move around a bit. So, that’s what Lena planned to do.

It was a real struggle at first, just getting her leg over the safety railing. But once she did, Lena ended up getting used to the crutches on the way out, inevitably greeting all the nurses in French. Suffice to say, after a few days of being trapped there, this felt like a home stretch to freedom. It wouldn’t be long before Lena would’ve found her way out of the hospital and ended up on her way back to her own humble abode.

There was the sound of keys jingling when Lena propped open the doorway into her own place. She had gotten exhausted from all that walking from the hospital all the way over, and immediately crashed on her bed first chance she got.

There wasn’t gonna be any time to rest for now. Her phone had buzzed, and Amélie’s name popped up over Lena’s messenger.

* * *

**Amélie:** I thought you said the first chance you got of getting out, you’d tell me.

 **Amélie:** (Picture of an empty gurney)

 **Amélie:** _Pourquoi?_

 

 **Lena:** Oh

 **Lena:** I’m so sorry I was gonna

 **Lena:** But I just got back to my own place

 **Lena:** I swear I was gonna send you a message asap!

 

 **Amélie:** I see.

 **Amélie:** Well. These flowers aren’t going to wilt, then. I’m coming over.

 **Amélie:** You are okay with me coming over, right?

* * *

 Lena didn’t even need to reply before she almost had her heart skip a beat. Amélie coming to her own place was great and all, but it wouldn’t mean shit if she wasn’t as tidy as her professor’s own cozy apartment. She rose up out of bed, looking around in shame. It was just so messy, and so unorganized. Random bits of clothing hung in awkward areas, and it was just so fucking hideous to look at.

With a bum leg, there was no way Lena could even clean up right now. She’d have to hope that Amélie didn’t mind. Hell, she didn’t mind being more rebellious than uptight and that _completely_ fucked Lena over last time a la the coffee date.

The funniest part was that for the first time in a while, Lena began having a bit of a gay panic again. Her professor was coming over, and she couldn’t even present herself. It really seemed like the law of being a lesbian was set in god damn stone: Be as useless as possible.

Merely, the student just groaned heavily. She was such on a good streak of being presentable, too. The next step would be to be presentable in the best possible way she could.

* * *

 Amélie had held a bouquet of flowers in her hand and a box of comforting chocolates in the other. She had been standing outside of Lena’s apartment for a few seconds, unsure if this was the right place. But, considering that she checked in with the front office twice to make sure this was the right place, she knocked on the door with her chocolate-holding hand.

“It’s open!” A Cockney accent from the other side announced.

It was a bit difficult to navigate with no free hands to use, but Amélie opted to hold onto the chocolate box with her flower hand too and opened up the door. Judging by how she was greeted, Lena must’ve been busy. Or, at the very least, doing something that requires more attention than opening up a door.

Comparatively, Amélie’s place was larger than Lena’s. The one upside to it was that Lena’s was more of a modest size and therefore more comfortable, whereas when Amélie was in her house she often felt that it was a bit too spacious. Not only that but it sure as hell felt like a college student was living in here.

There were closed shutters and all of the furniture was pretty much standard quality, though it seemed like color palette choices were an option seeing as how the apartment floor had bright orange walls and an incredible amount of browns were present.

It was a bit natural to think Lena would be on her bed resting, or perhaps making herself some food since she hadn’t eaten lunch at all judging by the time.

Nope. What Amélie was greeted with, after entering in, and examining the place was Lena sitting in the stereotypical sexy pose on the couch. Her leg brace was off, with the accompanying crutches placed casually to the side. Truly, it must’ve been an irresistible sight, if Lena was remotely assuming so. There was actually some recent dishes sitting in the sink to indicate that her student did, in fact, get lunch.

But the professor’s focus right now was more on her student being dumb again. Lena raised an eyebrow and had a bit of a smug look on her face. “Why, hello there.”

By then, Amélie almost dropped her box of chocolates and flowers to try and contain herself from laughing. Instead, she stifled it in and put down the box and the flowers on a nearby coffee table.

 _“Est-tu serieux --”_ was all that Amélie could say before it became hard to hold back her laughter. She sat down on the couch afterwards, briefly calming herself down. “I can’t believe you, Lena.”

Nevertheless, it seemed like Lena was gonna keep playing this charade. How messy her apartment was seemed to be overlooked, and that was all that mattered. Doing what she could without badly hurting herself, Lena moved over towards Amélie.

“Oh, you better believe it, Amélie. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

Once again, Amélie had to laugh, only to calm down just as quick. She lightly pushed Lena just to tease her. “Oh, you. Stop that! I’m not the least aroused by this. Not with all your clothes scattered around.”

 _Fuck._ It failed.

“I have no idea how you can figure out where things are if it’s this untidy.”

Lena dropped the act and her eyes widened. She came over to Amélie again and waved her hands. “W-wait, I can explain!”

“No, no. Don’t even explain. It’s so...you, Lena.  I’ll let it pass.” Her professor said, rolling her eyes still in disbelief. She shook her head at how incredibly cheesy that was. “Besides,” she continued on, “I wanted to see you.”

It was a good joke, but not enough to forget her senses. In the brief moment that would follow, Amélie turned her attention over to Lena and how she was holding up.

The cut lip Lena received had no scar, so it seemed to heal up properly and then some. Her leg wasn’t swollen, so that was a big plus. As for mental state, she couldn’t say. Lena being gay was just a constant.

Amélie came here with full intent not to let these flowers wilt. Thus, she looked around for something that could fit as a temporary vase. Instead, she found an unused water jug. It was good enough for the job, so Amélie filled up said jug and, for now at the very least, it’d be the new home for the flowers.

Then, she opened up the accompanying box of chocolates. Judging by how it looked by the exterior, it was some fancy, fancy chocolates made by the Swiss. She had presented them to Lena, and had a soft smile. “Don’t eat them all in one go.”

Though by then Lena had already picked up four truffles out of the box. Not even Amélie could stop her from eating those sweet, sweet truffles. Greed might’ve gotten the best of her at the moment when she tried reaching out for a fifth, but Amélie snapped the box shut, unaware that her student was going to grab another one at any rate.

Amélie proceeded to take off her coat and hang it up somewhere, just casually flinging one of Lena’s countless pairs of flannel-themed pants willy-nilly. It wasn’t like this was gonna be cleaned up right now, nor was it gonna get any cleaner. The professor’s attention then switched over to her student, who was about to go get her leg brace back on.

“Are you going somewhere?” Amélie bent down a little bit to help assist her student.

“Yeah. I gotta...get my homework and stuff done.”

The professor had just remembered that Fall Break would be over with. Even though this meant that things would go back to normal for a bit, Lena was always welcome to come visit her. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a bit upset that things didn’t go as planned. But then again, when do they?

After _carefully_ adjusting her leg brace, Amélie had glanced at her student in her eyes, remaining silent, but ever watching. Lena on the other hand had no idea why her professor was doing this, but once again, Lena didn’t dwell on it. She got her crutches and began trying to remember where her laptop was. Just before leaving, she turned over to Amélie, who was now comfortably lounging in the couch. “Mind helping me out with some assignments? Gotta catch up and all that.”

_Nod._

* * *

 After a few hours of getting past a staggering amount of math, history, and astronomy assignments, Lena had officially caught up. The only class assignment she had now was just to study French. She had the slides up in her laptop where she silently practiced, and Amélie was on standby, now wearing her glasses. The closed shutters from earlier had been opened up, giving at least some semblance of sunlight inside an otherwise dim apartment floor.

All of this seemed to be a bit of a blur already. Lena hadn’t spoken French this entire break, but she had no excuse not to considering her professor was gauging her even on the break. Maybe it was the strain of her other assignments, but Lena wasn’t quite feeling it today, even though she deemed French to be exhilarating.

Speaking of, that professional side of Amélie seemed to be a bit reserved today, even if Lena hadn’t seen that side of her in a while. Everything was just noticeably different than the Amélie she knew and was familiar with.

“So, _avoir_ doesn’t get agreements when we’re talking with direct objects?”

Professor Lacroix had nodded. " _Oui._ It cannot follow the verb, par example… _Il nous a donné les meilleures idées. Je leur ai parlé hier._ ’”

Lena just nodded and put a mental note of it down. She’d surely review it later on, or at least when she comes back to class. For now though, she seemed a bit tired of doing work. With a sigh, Lena stretched and felt like moving around again. Maybe a bit of fresh air would’ve straightened her out some. Typically, Lena never really opened up her windows aside from the shutters. Just for today she had done so, and took in a deep breath.

Much like a cat, Amélie couldn’t be heard and snuck up on Lena a few moments later, putting away her glasses. “I suppose that’s all the help you need, then?”

The student nodded, and yawned. “I’d have probably slept halfway through if you didn’t keep me going.”

“Well, France isn’t quite known for handing out too many assignments. Letting them stack up, however, is another thing.”

“Mhm…” Lena responded back. She checked the time to see that it had bled into the afternoon. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Amélie shook her head. “I cleared up whatever I could with my own assignments as instructor and student. Plus it’s not like I have anything better to do at home.”

The board had given Amélie that privilege after all. She’d use it to her advantage as a means of just visiting Lena whenever she desired, and to help out in any way she could, so long as it didn’t affect her instructional skills and allowed her to have favoritism. She even sent Lena messages concerning this. Even so, Amélie didn’t seem to mind breaking those rules a bit. Her favorite student was of course Lena, but she didn’t ever play the favorites game when it came down to classroom time. It wouldn’t count, right?

No, of course not. Nobody had to know, and they shouldn't have to know.

Things got quiet once more, and the two girls ended up just staring at each other without saying much. Their eyes wandered around from time to time, but they’d always meet up after. Amélie on the other hand wasn’t quite comfortable with it being this quiet with the two of them around.

With that, she caressed Lena’s cheek and moved in closer, until their foreheads were practically touching each other. As if she took a page out of Lena’s book, she did something bold, if not a bit foolish. Amélie delicately kissed Lena on the lips twice. Then another one just for good measure.

No, this wasn’t a ‘game’ like Amélie pretended it to be for so long. It was real, and for a while she didn’t believe it.

“You did it again, Amélie.” Lena softly whispered, only this time with a little smile attached. “Not gettin’ carried away are we?”

Truthfully, Amélie didn’t want to admit it, but yes. She had promised that she wouldn’t get carried away again, but here she was. She just couldn’t get enough was the problem, but she didn’t want to fix it. She particularly enjoyed this intimacy with somebody who wasn’t after her for the sake of wealth or reputation. Just unconditional love. She couldn’t lie to her favorite student.

“I am. I can’t apologize for that.” Amélie replied, sounding a bit regretful she did such a thing.

But there wasn’t ever a need to be sorry for it, and Lena didn’t even feel like she needed it either. She merely giggled and reciprocated, doing the same thing Amélie did to her, only adding on a close embrace. If Lena could, she would’ve totally straddled her professor then and there.

“I...should go.” Amélie proclaimed. “I need some time to think.”

It was surprising, to say the least. It was quite different to see Amélie be more reluctant with herself in comparison to the more casual and carefree side she was given a first impression on. She couldn’t help but feel like Amélie was hiding something, and more importantly she wanted her to stay.

“Couldn’t you stay a minute more? We were just gettin’ started.”

Unfortunately, Amélie shook her head. “I’d love to, but…” her voice trailed off. She shook her head again, and stood up, having pushed herself off of Lena. “I’ll see you soon in class, yes?”

Though there might’ve been a minor protest, Lena decided to just let it go for now. She smiled, and nodded. “Always.”

Amélie smiled back just the same, grabbing her coat and putting it back on. Without much of anything else, she exited out of Lena’s apartment.

“Yeah...soon.” Lena repeated herself, only in a whisper now.

Maybe not soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Happy Valentine's Day! Or at least, it still is when I finished this thing. If you're not a fan of it, Happy Single's Awareness Day then.
> 
> After this chapter and the next one, things'll start picking up again plot-wise. Funny thing is, this got so long that I had to divide it into two hence the next chapter being the end of this (potentially) thick filler update. Some loose ends should be tied up and some new characters might pop in later on, so sit tight for that.
> 
> P.S. Would anybody be interested with a space AU I was working on for Widowtracer? It's nowhere near being finished but I feel like the first chapter's presentable at the very least.


	12. A Game of Love, No More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lena and Amélie confess where it all began.

After a relatively non-eventful Fall Break, Lena returned to class without needing her crutches and brace anymore. She still had a light limp, but it wasn’t at all too bad or noticeable unless people focused on her. In any case, things got back to normal. Routines, schedules, assignments, all that shit. Just back to normal.

It was late at night when Lena couldn’t go sleep again, finding herself back in the same spot as the first few days of classes. She hated these nights, where sleep was something she really wanted but staying up too late would inevitably fuck with her schedule. She thought about perhaps just late night texting with Angela and co. but they’d not appreciate getting their own sleep disturbed.

Maybe she overthought it a little bit, but Lena couldn’t stop thinking about her professor’s behavior since a few days ago. They’d only just begun doing some personal touchy-feely things together, but all of a sudden Amélie had to jet. Then the next few days she didn’t respond to texts or even pick up the phone. Maybe the pressure was getting to her professor, or maybe they got caught already with their fly down. Either or, Lena had a chance to confront Amélie about it soon enough.

* * *

The first days back to class were always rough. Considering the lack of proper sleep last night, Lena felt exhausted and unprepared. It wasn’t unlikely that the other kids around campus felt the same since she overheard conversations about not wanting to go back, but after Fall Break only came the much longer Winter Break. It didn’t help either that the weather grew colder and rain was all the more intense as the season continued on. It was not to say, however, that rain was here to stay today.

By the time Lena had reached the hour to get to French class, a bit of her perked up from the inside. She was the first one to arrive back in the classroom, followed by the other good-grade kids that merely walked in and sat down, conversing with no one. As the minutes ticked by for passing period, all but the expelled students had returned once more to Professor Lacroix’s French classroom. It didn’t seem like news had spread about what unfolded over Fall Break, but at the same time it wasn’t like these kids cared too much. As it stands, all those actively attending Professor Lacroix’s French classroom were here.

Except, unfortunately, the professor wasn’t there just yet. Never in the past classes had Amélie ever been late, minus the first day.

Lena looked around, and was just as confused as her other classmates. Instinctively, she went to go fetch her phone - not to text her friends, but more to check her school mail just in case Amélie sent everyone a notice of absence. Though, just as she was about to open up her inbox, the professor did step inside the class.

Rather than having her typical hair in a ponytail, Amélie kept her hair down for today. Also typically, Amélie would have at least a manila folder with stacks of paper inside them, or her purse. Today she had neither. The only thing that kept up to the professor’s original image was her attire.

“ Je suis désolé. I was caught up.” Amélie softly spoke, brushing the hair out of her face. “I will be taking attendance now.”

Of all the things Lena expected to see today, a less formally outfitted Amélie was not one of them. Perhaps it was their last encounter that was making her feel on the edge? No, even with months of getting to know her professor, this didn’t feel like it was gonna suddenly change her behavior in an entire few days. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem right.

When all the names were read off as normal, Amélie took in a deep breath. “I have to be honest with you all, I do not feel like teaching today. So I think I’ll make class shorter.”

Oh now something  definitely wasn’t right.

“For today, I want you to write down the things you did or wanted to do over break in French. Easy,  oui? ”

In response, the students did exactly what the professor told them to without hesitation. It was perhaps the first time in a while where all the kids actually wanted to get their work done in a hurry - and correctly - just so they could get a ticket back to their own life for the rest of the day.

Well, correction: All the students except Lena. She was probably the last one to pull out a sheet of paper and start writing anything down. Even then, her entirety of Fall Break ended up just being with Amélie. In her head she could just simply lie for an assignment, or maybe she could even get away with not doing it at all. But it’d feel wrong for her to just write nothing, so she just wrote down all the things she wished she could’ve done with her professor instead.

Visiting Amélie’s ancestral home in Annecy. Finishing the ‘Déja Vu’ movie. Going back to the  Cygne Noir Café and getting another flavor of coffee to try out. Kissing in the rain. Having much more intimacy than just cuddling next to each other. One thing leading to another...

One of these was not like the others, and Lena got a little bit ahead of herself there. Maybe the French charm of casual lovemaking was getting to her, so she blew that thought cloud away and felt flushed. She made sure that there was no possible way her professor could decipher it out of a large black blob to cover that up.

The professor took the time to stand next to the doorway with her hands extended slightly outwards to collect papers. The assignment itself was probably done in five or ten minutes, though for Lena it took a bit longer because she got caught up in the moment, wanting to really make sure she was getting everything she could.

Amélie glanced over to Lena, and gave a soft smile. “I didn’t take you for being a slow person, Lena.”

In response, the student stood up and just grinned. “Maybe I wanna draw out this time because I can’t get enough of ya. That’s an option.”

“Maybe so.” Amélie chuckled, placing her paper in the stack. She slipped all of them into her hands, ensuring not to cut herself in the process. Then, she stuck all of them neatly within her manila folder and double-checked to make sure these wouldn’t fall out by accident. In the meanwhile, Lena was busy packing up her backpack and situating herself to get moving. At the same time though, Amélie was already heading off to her office.

By the time Lena noticed she was all alone she had rushed ahead to catch up with her professor, just as she was leaving the building.

“Oi! Don’t just leave me like that!” Lena cried out, almost tripping over herself. When she caught her footing, she smoothened out her pants and took a deep breath. “Jeez, Amélie! What’s the rush?”

“Just seeing if you can keep up.” Amélie smiled, and chuckled once again. “That and I want to go home.”

Of course, Lena would laugh along too. But her chipper behavior faded away for a little while and she placed a hand over Amélie’s own, stopping in her own tracks. “Wait a while longer.”

Amélie paused as well, turning her attention over to Lena. She raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Something on your mind,  chérie ?”

“Just...a little confused.” Lena spoke softly, moving a few inches closer to her instructor. “About you, actually.”

Amélie turned her gaze downwards, and adjusted her posture to be just a little more proper than today. She said nothing about it, but definitely it was a sign that something was up already.

“Or rather just mixed reactions.” Lena continued on, unsure of what to really say about this. All she ever thought about was meeting her professor and discussing the thing, but not how to get there.

“About me getting carried away,  oui? ” Her professor replied back in a soft, yet reluctant tone. “I think that was just me under some stress. Fall break was ending soon and...” Her voice trailed off again, and she didn’t finish her own sentence.

The student just shrugged. “Doesn’t explain why you seem like you’re avoiding me, or something.”

But Amélie continued beating around the bush, merely brushing away that notion much to her student’s displeasure. “No, no. Just...something else.”

“So you  are doing something to avoid me, yeah?” Lena crossed her arms and raised her eyebrow. “Looks like tables are turnin’ this time.”

The professor just smiled, and just continued on moving to her office space. It was just to drop off papers and nothing more. But even that was a little bit hard for Amélie given her company, since everything they do seemed to revolve around their office, her own place, or otherwise. At some point in time Amélie would need to confess her true feelings.

At the time of thinking about it however, Lena took a seat where she’d always sit at, and set her backpack down. She wanted to casually cross her legs, but given the treatment for her ankle was still setting in it probably wasn’t the most viable thing to do right now.

After a few moments of idling about, Amélie took her seat not where her original office chair was, but rather opposite to her student. She clasped her hands together, just smiling.

“How’s your leg?” Her professor asked.

“Doing fine. Are ya gonna tell me something?”

“I was actually thinking about going to the park again.” Amélie smirked impishly. “Bit of fresh air. We’re not staying here for long.”

Oh, the tables were turned alright. Now it was her professor asking her to go to the park.

“Unless, of course...you do not like parks.” Her professor teased, her smirk turning into a grin. “Will you come?”

Lena reluctantly nodded. She wasn’t quite sure where this was going, but it seemed like major déja vu to say the least. Somewhere along the lines, she felt her heart skip a beat. That gay panic was setting in again, if she thought this was where she thought things were gonna go.

* * *

So there they were again, at the park where all of this began. Or rather, where the beginning of Lena’s journey to Amélie’s approval would’ve begun. Nobody was around given the cold weather forced most people to stay inside for warmth, but it seemed like Amélie wasn’t going to be bothered by it. Suffice to say for Lena though, she would’ve preferred staying inside and not in this brisk environment. They both sat down at the nearby bench, though in just a few quick moments Lena ended up huddling together with Amélie for warmth.

“We came all the way out here just for air? Well I’d like to go back ‘cause it’s fuckin’ freezing.”

The professor wouldn’t have any of it though, and she only continued to smile and place her index finger on Lena’s lips. “You shush. It’s much colder in Annecy. You should prepare for that.”

Lena grumbled at that, but it only served to make Amélie stick her tongue out in a teasing manner. There would absolutely be no complaints, because Lena wanted this and Amélie would gladly oblige.

“So why out here? I know it’s the park and all but...why?” Lena had asked.

“Coming full circle, after with what I’ve been thinking.”

“...Yeah?” For a moment there, Lena seemed genuinely confused, and she tilted her head. “Whatcha been thinkin’?”

“For a while, I’ve...thought about our relationship. It’s been, well...something, hasn’t it?”

There was just a nervous little nod from her student. She didn’t say anything, and only let the professor continue on her lecture.

“I never thought of it that way. I always thought it was fun, teasing my favorite student around.” Amélie grinned and lightly caressed Lena’s cheek. “But then I realized something.”

Another nod, though Lena wasn’t quite sure where this was going.

“Look,” Amélie shifted her sitting positioning so she was face-to-face with her student now. “what I’m trying to say is I never took this thing between us too seriously. But then you took an injury and something just...sparked. Inside me.”

She took in a deep breath and exhaled, letting the moment sink in for a little bit. Then she looked at Lena again.  “I love having fun with you. You’re so easy to tease.”

“So that’s why you were getting carried away.” Lena lowered her head down and covered up her face. She was feeling hot, which was evident by the fact that she didn’t feel as cold as she was literally seconds ago. “You’re so mean, y’know that?”

There was laughter, though in the timespan of another few seconds Lena could feel her hands being forcibly removed from her face, then warmth pressing up against her lips again - only this time, it was a lot more passionate.

Amélie broke away first, only having a smug look on her face afterwards. “I wouldn’t have this any other way. And I’d hate to lose you.”

“Y’know what I hate right now?” Lena chuckled a little bit. “Being cold.”

There was a rather disappointed groan from Amélie as she rolled her eyes. “So much for being romantic by coming full circle. Are you sure  I’m the one being mean here?”

“I’m just kiddin’!” Lena heartily laughed. “You said I was easy to tease yet here you are.”

By now Amélie slumped her shoulders and sharply breathed out her nose. “So you like being in the cold then? How about you remove your jacket and give it to me?”

Lena began stuttering. “N-no thanks. Can we just get back inside, please?”

“That’s what I thought.” Amélie impishly grinned. “Fine. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several months of no updates because of college work, sickness, a lot of depressing things, and the loss of my muse. I'm going on vacation real soon but that doesn't mean the updates are actually gonna be slower! I'm actually bringing in a work laptop so I can actually write. How much is dependent on whether or not I feel it, which is likely...in-between. Ask me about it on Tumblr or something.
> 
> Before you ask, yes. This is the last chapter of the filler and there'll be a timeskip where they just go to Annecy.  
> Thanks for sticking around.


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